


A Sense of Sarcasm

by Gla22



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Flowers, Frenemies, Rated T for, Slow Burn, and (mostly past off-screen) abusive behavior, like forreal so many flowers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-11-18 09:23:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 50,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11288370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gla22/pseuds/Gla22
Summary: Not the genderbent college AU we deserve, but perhaps the one we need right now.From the moment Jean meets Eren, she knows exactly how she feels toward her: annoyed. Unfortunately, feelings aren't famous for their logic, and she soon finds herself dealing with an incredibly awkward crush on top of the year's school work (and her lingering feelings of emotional inadequacy following her previous, dramatically failed, relationship - but we don't talk about that). Basically just Eren and Jean being dense, but this time with school, sports, and large amounts of flowers.





	1. Calendula

The first bouquet was simple. Three calendula bound with nine small branches carrying tiny white flowers - very bright, sunny colors. I’d like to say that I thought maybe they’d go with her eyes, but the truth isn’t so pretty. They were just there, and I saw them, and in my infinite wisdom, I took some, right out of the vase in the entrance to my dorm. It was only later, as I walked back towards  my room and Ymir asked me for the umpteenth time what I was doing with those flowers, I realized where they were going. 019 Doyle Hall. Right outside Eren’s door.

We met four months before, in the room of a mutual friend. All of us had better things to do, but term hadn’t really gotten started and we knew that once our work kicked in there wouldn’t be time to watch movies until four in the morning, so we did it then. Sasha had invited myself and Marco, plus Eren and Mikasa, crowded us all into her room-for-two while her roommate was out, and set up the projector. That’s right. The projector. She had a projector that hooked up to her laptop and a stretch of blank wall big enough to host a big screen, and by the virtue of that projector had created the hottest spot in Reuters.

By the time I showed up, they were in full swing. The lights were out, the projector was on, and the snacks were half eaten. Sasha was stretched out in a huge grey sweatshirt, on her bed with a bag of chips chuckling a few notes at a time. Marco was curled up on the floor at her footboard, the screen reflected in her unusually large, dark eyes. There was Mikasa, sitting on Hannah’s bed - gingerly, like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to be there, ready to stand at a moment’s notice. She looked over when the door opened, the only one to move, and I suddenly forgot what I was doing and possibly where I was.

I took one step into the room, one step towards her, and opened my mouth to say something dashing and clever, when Sasha said, “Dude, take your shoes off! My vacuum’s busted until my uncle can come down and fix it; we can’t get dirt in here."

Oh, right, people. Other people. In the world. I practically tripped over my own feet in surprise, but turned it into a fluid lace-untying dive. When I looked up again, Mikasa’s eyes were back on the screen. I cleared my throat.

“So, uh, what’re we watching?” I said, dropping to the floor at the foot of Hannah’s bed. I avoided Mikasa’s eye carefully as I sat, because she was obviously a very pretty girl, but I had yet to discover what kind of Pretty Girl she was, and until I knew that there was no way I would know how to look at her and sit down at the same time.

Sasha had the subtitles on, her phone out, and her lips moving all at the same time. “Just some gay 80’s shit. It’s adorable, though - Rami is the cutest thing. He’s totally in love with Killian, but Killian’s completely oblivious. It’s so pure, yet so painful.”

I looked up. Sports movie. Boys in shorts. Soccer. Football? Soccer. Mikasa was sitting four feet away, possibly less. Some dude who was probably Killian tossed his perfect hair after a goal while another dude who was probably Rami watched from the goalie box, comically open-mouthed. But how to talk to her without getting incidentally shot down by Sasha? Step one: play it cool. Like I knew any other way.

“So, it’s Mikasa, right?”

“Shhhh, he’s gonna talk to him!”

“…oh, the tension.”

“ _Shhhh!_ They’re perfect! Look at his _face!_ ”

Well, that went nowhere fast, and now if I tried to talk to her again before a break I’d look creepy. Besides, on the screen dusk had fallen, and Rami and Killian were gazing soulfully into each other’s eyes while Rami struggled to articulate how important their _friendship_ had become - and then there was Sasha in the corner, making a noise like an elephant with a puncture. Frankly, not a very romantic atmosphere.

And that, of course, is when Ymir made her appearance. She loomed into the doorway, slender and tall, her tuft of nut-brown hair loose and awkward around her jaw. “How’re the retros doin’? Still watching fake-gay 80’s shit? Just cut the crap and put on Saving Face already.”

“Come in, sit down, and shut up. Don’t forget to take your shoes off!”

Ymir was a mile ahead, as usual, her mocs outside the door and her arm around my shoulders before Sasha had finished her sentence. She looked at the screen for a moment, then said in a stage-whisper “How’re you supposed to tell them apart?”

I snorted and actually-whispered back, “Well, they both have dark brown hair and dudefaces, but the one’s always looking like he’s trying to balance an olive on his nose and the other just noticed a scuff on his shoe.”

“Got it. So then -”

“Guys, forreal, we’re hitting the climax here."

“Heh. Climax.”

She actually giggled, which I took as an encouraging sign, and continued with, “It’s a legitimate question. Two conventionally attractive fake-high school guys with -“

“ _Jean_.”

“What? It’s just an observation -“

“Dude, just shut up and let us watch the movie,” said a sixth voice, from between the beds. I hadn’t even noticed another person was in the room. She was leaning against Sasha’s dresser, one knee pulled up and the other stretched in front of her, arms folded over her dark blue sweatshirt. She glared at me from under roughly-chopped bangs, mouth set. “You’re real funny and all, but how about you let us listen to something else for a change? Like the movie we came here to watch?”

I opened my mouth to reply, then on impulse glanced up at Mikasa. She was glaring, too, eyebrows drawing down over her dark eyes. I shut my mouth immediately, and settled for rolling my eyes at the girl by the dresser before turning back to the screen. I may not have been absorbed in the film, but I didn’t want to piss off Sasha, and I do know when to quit. It was at best three against two, and I was not on the majority’s good side.

Ymir stayed a little longer and made a few more abortive attempts to turn us into hecklers before reaching her Men Talking Threshold and making her exit, claiming she had engineering lectures to catch up on before the game Saturday (“Hey, Jean, want to throw together some extra tackle practice?” “Nope. My concussion opportunities are extensive enough, thanks”). She probably did; engineers have to take more classes than either B.S. or B.A.s.

The movie was almost over; the big game was coming up and Rami was pleading with his coach to take him out of the goal, to let him come out of the box (and closer to Killian, as Sasha graciously pointed out). Marco was fidgeting by the other bed. She would be gone as soon as the movie ended. I hadn’t heard another word from either Mikasa or the girl by the dresser. Who even was she? And who did she think she was, anyway, busting in on my friends and making me look inconsiderate? It was just a joke, and besides, this movie was objectively terrible. Ymir was right, a little heckling would be well-placed. Or at least some chatter. Why even turn the subtitles on if we were going to sit in utter silence? Or were they just so we wouldn’t miss anything over the impassioned gasps Sasha had doubtless expected? Maybe she was really hard of hearing. That actually gave me pause, but hey, she could read. The big game was over. Killian hung his arm around Rami’s neck and put him in a headlock, but affectionately, dragging him out of the team huddle. Rami broke free, laughing, and straightened, eye to eye with Killian. His smile relaxed. His eyes flicked over Killian’s face. A voice from behind me whispered, quiet but perfectly distinct: “Now kiss.” It was unmistakably Mikasa. I felt my heart drop a couple notches. Clearly, it was not meant to be. Or maybe it was? I could see it. They were cute together.

No, they really weren’t. They were cute separately, but who even were they? I could barely define one outside the other - cute guy who’s good at soccer, cute guy who’s bad at soccer. I really couldn’t see it.

“Right? Ugh, so good. Satisfying. Plus, you know they boned later. Probably, like, immediately after that shot,” said Sasha from across the room.

Marco stood at the base of her bed. “Gonna go do the econ readings. Catch you later, Sash.”

“Shit, I have to do those too. Ah well. No one does the reading until the quiz, anyway. Study together Sunday?”

“Sounds good,” she answered, stretching and yawning as she made her way to the door. “‘Night, all.”

A concert of “G’Night’s” came from around the room as Marco disappeared around the corner.

“What next?” asked Sasha, the projected screen turned the deep, bloody red of her Netflix account.

After a brief pause, Mikasa said, “I’m good with anything.”

“How about something a little more action-y?” said the girl by the dresser. Her comment gave me the opportunity to look at her a little more closely, though the darkness precluded anything too thorough. Her hair was black in the shadow (though less shiny than Mikasa’s). Her irises were pale in clear, canted eyes, stark against her skin. And she was staring straight back.

“Sure. We can go action-y as fuck. Have you guys seen Redline? It’s completely ridiculous, but the animation is fucking incredible,” Sasha said, typing the title in.

“Sure,” said Mikasa

“Yeah, alright,” I said, now unwilling to break eye contact and fighting an instinctive nervous smile.

The girl’s expression had become, if anything, more serious. “Sounds good.”

Sasha started the film, only to see that most dreaded of all movie night sights: “buffering”. She sighed, then rolled over and reached for the projector. “Ah shit. Well, we might as well adjust the focus while we wait.”

“By the way, what’s your name?” I asked. “I know I’ve seen you around, but I don’t know it.” I hadn’t seen her around, or if I had, I didn’t recall.

“Eren. I’m _sure_ I’ve seen you too,” she said, in a tone that made it unmistakable that she had not “but what’s yours?”

“Jean,” I said, and watched as the string from Sasha’s sweatshirt swung down and skimmed the very edge of her ear. Instead of ignoring it, Eren jerked away, but not in fear - unless stashed smiles were her way of showing fear.

Sasha had noticed, too, and in typical Sasha fashion said, “Wait, Eren, are you ticklish?”

“No! No. Just, uh, surprised me. That’s all.”

A grin was building like a wave on Sasha’s face. “Oh my god, you are.”

“Definitely not.”

“…are your ears _blushing_?” I interrupted.

“Nope,” Eren snapped, turning to face me and pulling her hood lower.

This was, of course, all part of the plan. With Eren facing me, Sasha lunged from her bed and drove her fingers under Eren’s armpits. Eren came bolt upright like she’d been shocked, then collapsed back against the dresser, howling with laugher and scrambling to eject Sasha’s hands. She was, as it turns out, ticklish. Then there was another voice behind me - Mikasa, chuckling softly from Hannah’s bed.

“Dammit - get off - Sasha - fuck you-“ Eren sputtered between heaves. Then she dove forward in a last ditch attempt to escape, under Sasha’s grasping hands right at me. She came up to her knees two feet away, and suddenly it was every drill I’d ever done. I had no choice. I tackled her.

I would like to take this opportunity to make it known that the tackle was textbook. My cheek pressed against her thigh, hands wrapped around her opposite hip and thigh, push, and topple; use your partner to break your fall. I say this both as a testament to my skill and also because actually doing physical damage with a good kneeling tackle on carpet is, like, nearly impossible, unless your partner is completely flailing clueless. Eren was not completely clueless, which I figured out about the time her elbow locked around my throat.

_Well, shit,_ I thought through a faceful of Sasha’s old dorm carpet. I released her legs to try to get some clearance from her hold, with mixed success. On the pro side, I could breathe. On the con side, she was about halfway to rolling us over.

“Guys, watch it,” Sasha interjected, still amused but on a fast train to concerned. “Don’t break anything.”

“Don’t worry,” I huffed, still short of breath as I struggled to get my knees back under me. “Furniture is painful.” Still in Eren’s headlock, I pulled myself up, swinging her under me and trying to force distance with leverage. She was shorter than I was. If I could break her lock and get my reach back… I got one arm between us and tried to push my elbow into her sternum to break her grip.

She kicked my knee out from under me. I fell forward, still on top, and still in a headlock, and scraped uselessly at her forearm. She was grinning now, more widely than I’d seen all night. “Give up?”

“ _Hell_ no,” I hissed, and gave up on getting away. Instead, I braced my left knee and elbow against the floor, and raised my hands to her neck. She hissed and scrunched her head to her shoulders. She cursed me but, more important, loosened her elbows as she fought the urge to let me go and protect her neck. I jerked hard and flung us both sideways. Her grip slipped, and I ducked under her arm, back against Hannah’s bed. She pulled herself back up, still grinning, and gathered her legs under her. I raised my hands to deflect her -

“Stop fighting. You _are_ going to break something. Besides, we’re loaded now,” said Mikasa pointedly from her perch on Hannah’s bed.

A beat passed in silence. Then Eren tossed her hair and leaned back against Sasha’s bed, one knee in, the other extended. “By the way, a tackle is a terrible opening move. Anyone who knows anything about fighting knows how to deal with a tackle.”

“Yeah, well, rugby tackles are designed to stop a runner with the lowest possible chance of injury. I wasn’t planning on some psycho bringing a metaphorical knife to a fistfight.”

Eren opened her mouth to respond, but before she could speak Sasha said, “Oh, and did I mention how great the soundtrack is? The synthopop is so important to the film.”

Eren settled quietly against the end of Sasha’s bed. I leaned back against Hannah’s. The movie started. And then another person decided to join us.

“Hey guys, sorry I’m late. What’s happening?”

I froze. I didn’t look at the door, or anywhere but the screen. I didn’t even breathe. Sasha said, “Oh, hey, Samantha. You missed the gay 80’s stuff; I just started Redline. It’s great, super intense, every frame was drawn and colored by hand.”

“Cool. Artsy,” said Samantha. _I don’t think this is a good idea._ She unlaced her shoes. _Don’t bring it up at school._ She sat down next to me, and the foot of Hannah’s bed. _There’s no reason to make a big thing out of it._ “I like the music,” she said, as she rested her hand on my thigh. _Just pretend nothing happened._ The hand shifted, slow and soft, in and then up.

“Sorry Sash, just remembered, I’ve got a book for Shadis’ class tomorrow, see you later, looks good, have fun,” I said. I was out the door before I finished the final clause. I left my shoes in Sasha’s room.


	2. Snapdragons and Petunias

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, so I think I've decided on an update schedule - Tuesdays and Fridays. Thanks for the warm response, and look out for future updates!

Breakfast in the dining halls technically opens at 7:30, but when I went at 8, the room was still all but empty. Reuters’ had easily the best food on campus - well, if you didn’t count the JCCC on Shabbat - due to the equality in funding for each of the five halls. Reuters, both the furthest from central campus and the smallest, had the most money per student, and one of the nicer designs. The walk to most of my classes was part of the reason I was up so early, but it wasn’t all bad. At least once classes were over the walk gave the illusion that I was, on some level, coming home, not living within feet of buildings that radiated obligation. Anyway, yeah, it was 8 in the morning, and I was eating eggs and toast like a sleepwalker.

If I thought the morning fog would clear on my way to class, I was disappointed. Nine slipped to ten in a haze of “Ken, Morah,” and “Lo, Morah,” and “Ein li shealah, ani rak yegah.” At the end of the hour, I lurched out of class with an armful of homework for the next day and ten minutes to get to my (nearby) physics lecture. The short walk was a momentous improvement over my schedule last year, which had required going the better part of a mile from the south end of campus to the north and back (in the same 10 minute passing period) for my first three lectures. Unfortunately, the material was scarcely more comprehensible, and I found myself dreading what would happen when we moved past the review material - especially given that we seemed to have covered most of it in one lecture.

Now up two homework assignments, and unwilling to walk to Reuters and then back to the main campus for my afternoon class, I found myself prowling the campus center, still hazy and just looking for a place to study. There were tables on the main floor, overlooking a cafeteria, but it was too loud to sleep or work. I climbed the stairs to the second floor in search of a quieter space. I turned the corner on the second floor and found myself outside the rainbow lounge.

I hesitated before walking by, gazing aimlessly down the hallway, making a point not to look into the lounge itself. It was quiet in there. There were couches, a table, a nice corner nook, even a couple blankets. The only thing wrong with it was the rainbow cabinets, and blankets, and picture frames, and the fact that it was attached to the campus LGBT center. _You don’t_ have _to be queer to work in there_ , I thought at the time. Still, I had spent the last semester of my freshman year avoiding the center and everything associated with it. At this point, the thought of going in seemed tantamount to outing myself to the entire campus, and that wasn’t something I was sure I was ready for. Still. I was tired. I stopped staring down the hall and actually looked inside.

Cool brown eyes set in a freckled face looked back at me from inside the center, and Ymir raised one hand in greeting. I hung outside for another uncertain moment, until she turned the wave into a beckon and raised her eyebrows. I stood there for a moment more before shrugging my shoulders at the world and stepping onto the rainbow carpet. It would, after all, be rude to refuse her invitation.

I walked into the lounge as though I wasn’t fighting the urge to make sure no one saw me come in and took a seat across the table from Ymir, where (by complete coincidence) I could only be seen from one specific angle at one spot in the hall. I nodded a greeting and unzipped my bag. Ymir took one earphone out and said, “Yo, you were at the rugby practice yesterday. Jean, right?”

“That’s right. And you’re Ymir, like the giant, yeah?” The name didn’t really fit, truth be told. The girl was tall enough, but I couldn’t exactly imagine her bones as mountains.

“Oho, you got the reference. English major?”

“Geo. You?”

“Undeclared. Currently planning the prerequisites for chemical & biological engineering.”

“Good luck, dude. At least you don’t have to take a language, though.”

“Eh, I don’t think that would have been too much of a problem. My family speaks some Spanish at home,” she said with a shrug.

I stared at her for a moment. I’d contemplated engineering as a freshman, but it quickly became clear the extra classes were not something that I would take kindly. Still, I’d thought, it would almost be worth it just to get out of the language requirement. I was painfully monolingual when I started; two years of high school Spanish that amounted to practically nothing and a handful of prayer books do not a language teach. The reason - the /only/ reason - I’d considered an engineering major was to get out of language classes this girl wouldn’t have had to take anyway, and yet, here she was, CBE. It was almost like she wanted to be an engineer. I realized I’d been staring just a hair too long and cast about for something to say. “So, uh, you’re a frosh?” _Not 'where are you from’, then she’ll return the question and you’ll have to give a lecture about where you’re from and that’ll be the whole conversation right there_ \- “What are you taking?”

We went on like that for a couple minutes, just a few courtesy questions before lapsing into academic-induced silence. Still, I realized, I liked her. She was clearly smart, confident, and didn’t mind picking up the slack in a conversation, but she obviously knew when to be quiet. Plus there was the fact that she had shown up for rugby, despite apparently being made of sticks.

So we spent a few minutes talking, and a few more just sitting and working. I was still in that magical part of the year where I envisioned myself doing my homework as I got it. Staying ahead of the curve. Whatever. I knew the phase would be over by the end of the week, if not the day, but it wasn’t like I had much else to do. Besides, maybe, if I could just get in the habit of at least doing my language work on time…

Exhaustion aside, the homework was manageable, at least then. Even the physics. I was actually making progress, steadily if not painlessly, about the time another frosh walked in. I recognized her, too, from the first rugby practice. She was tiny, not as spindly as Ymir, but she couldn’t have been five feet tall, which was incidentally the only obvious barrier between her and a career in modeling. She nodded to us as she entered the lounge, then paused, looking around for a place to sit.

“Is it okay if I sit there?” she said finally, motioning toward the couch that formed the middle of the horseshoe.

“Sure,” said Ymir, gazing at the girl. I looked back and forth between them as surreptitiously as possible. The new girl smiled at Ymir, whose face may or may not have been flushing slightly. They’d probably met twice at this point. Bloody frosh.

“You don’t have to ask,” I said. I tapped my pencil against my equation notes, eyes on my paper. “The bench is empty.”

“Uh, well, yeah,” she stammered. “I just thought someone might have stepped out, or…”

“Don’t worry about it so much. We’re not gonna bite you,” I said. I starred the most likely candidate for my current problem. I didn’t look up as the girl made her way around the table and sat on the center couch, instead gnawing on the end of my pencil. We sat in silence for a while longer, until Ymir opened conversation once again.

“So, are you going to the second practice today?” I glanced up long enough to confirm she was talking to the blonde girl (Christina? Probably Christina) and went back to my work. The feeling that I was actually making progress was novel enough to hold my attention as the conversation went on, mostly about classes. Enrollment. The food. Frosh stuff.

This was still going on when more people made their appearance in the lounge. _Huh_ , I remember thinking, still pouring over my work. _N_ _ever thought there were so many people who worked here._ I finished the line I was working, then looked up. Armin had joined us, quietly settling on the floor opposite Christina and pulling out her laptop. She appeared to be choosing a soundtrack for her assignment, but she felt my eyes on her and looked back, offering a small smile. I blinked, still a bit out of social gear, then smiled back. At least she was actually my age.

“Hey,” said another voice, pitched low and smooth but agitated, from the bench under the window. “Anyone got a charger?”

Eren was curled up on the bench, a mess of wires in her hand and a tablet on the table next to her. As I watched she yanked one of the cords, pulling the rest tighter, and grimaced at the compressing knot. I answered before Ymir and Armin could unplug their ears. “I’ve got lots of chargers. Here,” I said, tossing her a micro-USB cell charger.

She looked at it for a second, then said, “No, it’s for this tablet. It’s magnetic on the end… I’ve got the end, though, so if any of you have a BIO laptop I can use the adapter and that would do it.” She made no move to return the charger, instead dropping it to the floor and still trying to unravel her plate of spaghetti. I half-stood and reached over, snatching it back with some annoyance. So it wasn’t the best joke ever, but she didn’t even seem to realize there had been one.

“No, sorry,” said Christina, apparently also oblivious to the humor. Ymir shrugged from her couch. Armin didn’t even turn around.

“Dammit,” said Eren, shoving the still-tangled mass back into her bag. “Whatever. I’ve still got like an hour of battery; I’ll just have to go after that if I can’t find one.”

“And that’ll be a crying shame,” I muttered, back to chewing my pencil. This time she heard me.

“I’ll say,” she stated, “I’m delightful fucking company.”

“Uh-huh,” said Armin, gazing at her laptop, apparently less dead to the world than her headphones would have us believe.

I could feel Eren’s eyes burning a hole in the side of my head. I let my face go slack and gnawed on the pencil, for all the world as though I hadn’t spoken. Finally, Eren muttered something and went back to her work (or at least to tapping away at her tablet). I fought the burning urge to turn and demand to know what she’d said.

The silence lasted a record-breaking 20 minutes this time before Eren sighed and stretched her arms over her head. I glanced toward the sound and found my eyes assaulted by the sight of the bare strip of skin between her waistband and the bottom of her hoodie. I looked up as quickly as possible, caught her eye, and only then started to wonder why I hadn’t just kept my eyes on my work to start with. She had obviously seen the quick motion in my eye, but instead of looking scandalized, she raised one eyebrow. I even thought I caught the beginnings of a smirk before I turned away, back to the physics set that now seemed much more opaque than it had a moment ago.

The rest of my passing period went without incident. As promised, Eren returned to her room in about an hour, having run out of tablet battery. Armin returned with her to get a fresh notebook, despite her next class being across campus in the engineering section. I left Ymir and Historia to their own devices, attended my afternoon class (a departmental requirement I could tell already would be murderous), changed in the basement bathroom, and made my way down to the rugby field.

Pros of being a club sport: less pressure, play-for-fun type environment. Cons: last pick for fields, meaning the walk to the field and back to my dorm added up to more than a mile. I considered asking the coach why we even bothered with warmup. That particular question vaporized the second I saw her again, grin, eyepatch, and all, pulling in to the tiny parking strip next the the field. I hastily turned away and motioned for one of the older players doing a passing warmup to send me the ball before Coach Zoe could ask what I was doing standing around with my thumb up my nose while the other players worked on their hands.

I hated practice, of course. Hated running in front of people, and trying to demonstrate skills I didn’t have. But just like the first time I had come out, after the fitness-and-patterns part was over and the catching-and-crashing began, I found I wasn’t even considering quitting.

Or at least, I wasn’t until one of the returning players knocked me on my  ass for the fourth time. Reiner was twice my size, but that didn’t mean she lightened up because I was technically her teammate. Every time I heard “The other team doesn’t care about your pretty face, Kirstein” in her voice bouncing around my skull.

She actually said “Don’t keep your feet so close together, and stand on your toes, not your heels.” I grunted, breath knocked out of me, while she picked herself up and jogged back to the end of the line. Armin, holding the other tackle practice bag next to me, looked at me sideways as I pulled my feet back under me and adjusted my stance.

“Don’t be afraid to be a little more aggressive-“ she began, but cut off when someone from her line - Historia, not a train like Reiner - tapped her bag gingerly.

“Nonononono,” Zoe called, observing the drill. “Hit her like you mean it.” She stepped up to the girl who had ‘hit’ Armin and started in, advising her on both her form and general emotional state. When she was done, the girl took a ten foot running start and knocked Armin back about six steps before she could get the bag under control. “Much better! It felt better, yeah? Start from there and you can work out the kinks.”

“You’re one to talk,” I said as Armin was pushed back again. She shook her head and smiled ruefully. “But hey, you know who has plenty of aggression? Your pushy roommate. Why isn’t she out here?”

“Eren? She doesn’t have time. She’s in Taekwondo, remember? I think we mentioned it at Sasha’s.”

_Anyone who knows anything about fighting…_ Reiner was next in line. She hit like a truck (again) I lost my footing (again), but this time I just fell to one knee - and, bonus point, I actually stopped her. She straightened and nodded over the bag. “Better.” I got back to my feet and finished the drill, though I couldn’t help but wish I had a playing field where I could hit Eren just as hard as Reiner hit me.


	3. Gardenia, Crocus, and Flos Adonis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is alcohol, a stirring speech, and about 16 tragic backstories.

I tossed my hair, and stepped up to my podium - a particular patch of floor I had declared would be my mark. “Good morning,” I said. The people scattered around the room were still laughing a bit, caught in the humor of the ‘dance’ performance that had just finished. I cleared my throat and started again, an edge to my voice. “Good morning.” I was slightly more successful this time; more than one person was actually looking, even if they still wore wide grins. I continued, “In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. ‘Mankind’.” I paused for breath and punctuation. “That word should have new meaning for all of us today.” Around the room, chatter was dying down. I was actually holding most of the room, and the smiles were shrinking. I made stony eye contact with individual audience members as I pressed on with the speech.

“We cannot be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests.” Here I broke my iron face, just a bit, allowing a trace of a crooked smile to show. “Perhaps it’s fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom… Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution… but from _annihilation_.” The smile was gone, and my fists were clenched. No one else in the room was talking. I had every pair of eyes in the room, even the seniors. “We are fighting for our right to live. To _exist_. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: We _will not_ go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight!  We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive!” _It’s too much it’s cheesy don’t do it man don’t -_ “Today we celebrate our Independence Day!” I roared, firing my right first into the air.

The hall exploded. I could see Reiner and Bertholdt in their navy blue clapping in the back, with Armin, Nifa, Ymir, and Historia in the front row, looking shell shocked but impressed. I stepped away from my mark, knees weak but flush with victory. All the attention was enough to make me forget I was wrapped in streamers, covered in red and blue face paint, and stank of beer. Rugby banquet is a trying time.

“Dude. That was _amazing_ ,” Reiner said, appearing suddenly by my shoulder. I grinned at her, trying not to let on how close I was to just straight up falling down. “Like, actually really, really good. Are you in debate or something?” she added, before punching me in the shoulder. I pitched sideways, then straightened, trying to do so like the initial movement had been me humoring her and not my sleep-deprived, alcohol-drenched cochlea teetering on the brink of failure.

“Thanks, but no. I don’t really have the pathos for it. I do, however, have a very good short term memory and a lot of rage.”

She snorted. “Well, still, that was great. It’ll boost you a bit in the standings - speaking of, gotta go math,” she said, and turned to join the cluster of seniors discussing which group of rookies best embodied the team’s values of scholarship, integrity, and general insanity. I toddled over to Ymir, Historia, and Nifa, who were still sitting together far too quietly.

“That was really good, Jean,” said Historia as I dropped across from her, between Nifa and Ymir.

Ymir clapped me on the shoulder. “Yeah, it was amazing. Too bad we were so shitty at everything else.”

“We were not going to steal a bicycle, Ymir,” Nifa sighed.

“Two of the other groups stole bicycles,” I grumbled. “They’re gonna get the points for it.”

“And that, you two, is known as a Bad Thing To Do. They teach about it in kindergarten,” said Nifa.

I shrugged. “I mean, the one was missing the seat and the other had negative tire pressure. I don’t think they exactly divorced anyone from their beloved iron horse.”

“Well, it’s done now,” said Historia. “I don’t really think we’re gonna win either, but no matter what it’s too late.”

There was a pause here as we all gazed toward the seniors, still huddled and whispering. Nifa chuckled softly. “I wonder if they found the picture yet.”

“I think we’d know if they had,” said Ymir, also clearly amused.

 “I dunno. What if the other groups turned one in too?”

 Ymir rolled her eyes. “C’mon, how many rookies do you think were willing to get stark naked on the football field in November? And then take a picture?”

 “Well, presumably they got naked in order to take the picture,” I said. I honestly wasn’t sure whether I was stating the obvious, but I decided to just go with my instincts.

 “Ha,” said Nifa dryly. “Little did you know, I just like being naked. The picture was an afterthought.”

 I stared at her for a moment, utterly unable to think of a comeback. Luckily, I was able to hide my vacationing voice behind Reiner, who chose that moment to turn around and shout, “Ladies, ladies, anything-but gentlemen! We have a winner!”

 That winner was, shockingly, not our little band, though we had done well enough to avoid getting stuck with cleaning the banquet hall. Instead, we were making our way back to our respective rooms, Historia, Nifa, and I on foot (at least until Nifa, who didn’t live in Reuters, peeled off), and Ymir on a bicycle of all things. Once we’d found out she’d ridden her own bike to banquet, we immediately asked why we didn’t just pretend to steal her bike. She’d looked at us like we’d been replaced with a pack of wolves and said that it just wouldn’t be sportsmanlike. I contended this was a completely unprecedented statement coming from her, which she had ignored, and here we were. She’d insisted on riding it home and was now cruising easy circles around Historia, me, and Marco, who had caught up with us halfway back to Reuters.

 Historia groaned and put her hand over her face. “Oh no. I’m drunk.”

 “You don’t say,” I said, watching Ymir as she coasted ahead.

 “No, I mean I’m _drunk_. And it’s like 2 in the morning. Going back to my roommates like this… I’m going wake them up, and Thom has work in the morning…”

“Ah, man, now I’m thinking about my roomies,” Ymir griped, blowing by going the other way. “I don’t think anyone has work, but we’ve been getting along so well. Not looking forward to this conversation. Especially since I’m still covered in paint and all.”

“Guess you’re an asshole, then,” I chirped.

Marco, on the other hand, looked down at herself and made a distressed noise somewhere between a moan and a squeak. “We have an in-room bathroom. There’s no way I can get this off without waking someone up.”

“…look, if it’s that big a deal…” I said, then trailed off. There was no reason not to offer. Except that I was very tired. “If you guys really don’t want to bother your roommates, you can sleep at my place.”

“Thanks, Jean, but we can deal with it. You probably don’t have room for us all anyway,” said Historia, rubbing vainly at her bright blue nose.

“Actually, I really do,” I said. The amusement I took in showing off my room was starting to overcome my apprehension over their sleep schedules. “I have a private bedroom, a living room, and a whole second set of furniture - including a bed, plus a sleeping bag.”

Ymir knew all of this already, of course. She’d been in my room scarcely a week before, with - other friends. Historia, however, was showing all the usual incredulity. “What? Two rooms and a spare bed? Did you get the first draw time or what?”

I grinned in the dark. “Luck, mostly. I was actually like 15th or something, but - time for the catch - the room’s on the third floor of the addition. No elevator, on the ass end of the ass end of campus. I don’t think the people above me even looked there. Apparently it was a grad student room last year. Anyway, the room on the other side is actually identical, and there are three frosh boys living there. Oh, and it’s right next to the bathroom.” This pitch was considerably less fluid than usual, but hey, I wasn’t usually giving it at 2:30 am.

“Are you sure, Jean? I don’t want to impose or anything, but avoiding seeing my roommates sounds… really great right now,” said Marco.

“Honestly, it’s not a problem - so long as neither of you are thinking of trying to take my bed,” I answered, then struck out ahead, leading the way to my corner. Or, you know, that was the idea; instead I struck out ahead of Historia and Marco while Ymir buzzed on ahead to lock up her bike. Then she wrenched it around halfway to the addition and pedaled back up past us to the entry by her own room. I turned and took a few backward steps, prepared to shout across the parking lot to ask whether she was going to sleep with me or not, when she smacked the lock on her bike and jogged after us. Oh. She just wanted it to be by her room in the morning. That… made sense. I swung back to walking forward while Ymir caught up. We made it the rest of the short walk to my room without incident.

On the third floor of the ass end of the ass end of campus, I flipped my lights on, bowed Ymir and Historia into the room, and enjoyed Historia’s gasp. “Holy shit. This is all yours?”

 I smiled at the ground. “My bedroom’s through the other door.”

 “Wow. You literally have a complete second set of furniture.”

 “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

 “Well, yeah, I just thought you were lying.”

 “Oh, thanks. See if I tell you guys where the sleeping bag is.”

 “We don’t need the sleeping bag, Jean,” Ymir cut in. “There’s a blanket on the bed already.”

 “Well, yeah, but you’re not both gonna sleep there, are you? It’s /tiny/.” Ymir was standing just behind Historia, glaring in a rather disagreeable fashion. I hoped she wasn’t suddenly feeling the alcohol.

 “It’s not a problem,” said Historia with a smile. “That is, unless you think it’s a problem, Ymir?”

 “No, I’ll survive. We’re both pretty skinny.”

 “Skinny or not, I still need the sleeping bag,” said Marco pointedly from behind them.

 I shrugged. “Whatever. Marco, the bag’s in the closet on the left, under the swimming stuff - no, other side. I’m gonna go brush my teeth; if you guys leave, make sure you prop the door. It’ll lock behind you.” Having done my duty as a host, I stumbled into the bathroom with my beloved toothbrush. It would be so much easier to just go to bed, but if I did I would wake up with a mouth full of death. Like Ymir and Historia. Ugh. Well, I wasn’t going to let them use my toothbrush.

When I reentered the room, they were tucked away, Ymir on her back next to the wall and Historia on her side, facing the rest of the room. They appeared to be locked in that state of awkward so easily inspired by sharing a bed. Whatever, they were teammates, they’d work it out. Marco had camped out on a section of floor smack dab in the middle of the room; I tossed her a pillow, then realized she couldn’t be that comfortable just laying on my tightly-wound, stubby-fibered carpet.

“…Marco, how’re you doing down there?”

She grunted softly and rolled upright. “I’m fine, why?”

“Here,” I said, making my way over to the closet. “I’ve got a thermarest in here somewhere - just gotta blow it up-“

“No, Jean, really, I’m fine, you don’t have to-“ Marco said.

“Just let her do it,” Ymir grumbled. “It’ll take less time than fighting about it.”

“…I mean…” said Marco. I took a deep breath and took advantage of her hesitation to start inflating the pad.

“Wow, Jean, who knew you were so aggressively nice?” teased Historia. I gave her a dirty look over the mouthpiece, but at least Marco looked less uncomfortable. I was done in less than a minute (probably) and dropped the cushion next to Marco. She thanked me as she rolled over and settled on the pad.

“I’m gonna turn the lights off,” I said as I retreated to my bedroom. “But I’m leaving the door to my room open.”

“Uh-huh,” Ymir grunted, her arm over her eyes.

I turned the lights off, crawled into bed, and was almost immediately struck by a lack of any desire to sleep. On the one hand, it was three am. On the other, talking. Ymir and Historia were cool. And besides, there was the opportunity to talk, possibly about myself. The choice was clear.

We couldn’t have been in bed five minutes when I whispered “Are you guys asleep?”

“No, why?” said Historia, at normal speaking volume.

“Well, it seems like a good time to talk, yeah? No class in the morning, and I’m still a little hyped up.”

“Fine. But just so you guys are warned, I might fall asleep,” Ymir said. It sounded like her arm might still be over her face.

“Don’t worry, Ymir, that won’t affect the quality of the conversation,” Historia teased.

“Oh, I see how it is. Well, I’m going to provide the most sparkling conversation in the room.”

Historia hummed in response. I chuckled in the dark. Talking seemed to have been the right choice.

So we talked, about the team for a while. “Nifa’s got some guts, yeah?”

“We knew that from the last game. She’s basically my weight, but taller,” said Historia, “And that just means she bounces less.”

“Mm. She is very pointy,” offered Ymir.

“Not as pointy as your personality, Ymir,” I said. I realized, somewhere deep down, that for all that I was awake I was… significantly less witty than usual. I also realized I didn’t really care.

“Wow. Rude. Not very presidential, either.”

“Eh, we all know I’d be shitty politician.”

“See, that’s totally what I thought, but then - your speech. It was almost good enough to make us forget you were, you know, drunk and covered in beer, tinsel, and face paint,” Marco said. I had a hunch she was smiling.

“Oh, yeah, dude, that was amazing,” Historia interjected. “It was better than Reiner’s game speeches; I think the seniors were impressed.”

Ymir interrupted my basking with a sing song “ _Speaking_ of Reiner…”

Her bait lead to nothing but a long, awkward pause. Finally, I got tired of waiting for them to dance their way to the problem, and said, “You know she’s, like, kinda crazy into you?”

“Oh my god, _obviously_ ,” she said. “It’s kind of impossible to miss.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Wait, did you really think I didn’t notice?”

“Well I mean,” I was stumbling over nothing. “It seemed like you might, given you asked Ymir to come with you to her birthday, and all, but you always seemed so… oblivious when you were together.”

“Hell yes I did,” she announced. “You think I’m just gonna tell her to fuck off? I’m too awkward for that. Besides, she’s not my type, but I still like her as person.”

“Huh. I just never had you pegged for that… romantically adept,” I said

“Romantically adept?” Historia laughed. “I had sex in the bathroom of the middle-of-nowhere Tennessee Chipotle I worked in last summer with a girl who just came in to order a burrito bowl.”

“What!” Ymir hollered. “You did not. No way.”

“I did.”

“Holy shit,” Ymir whispered, to no one in particular. “In Tennessee. That’s. Man. That’s an insane level of lesbian game, my friend.”

“I know… but really I barely did anything? I was taking her order and then she like. Stared at me and, I don’t know, sauntered across the room towards the women’s room. It was weird.”

“It was weird?” I said from my bed. “Does /she/ know that was your opinion of your, ah, liaison?”

“Of course not,” scoffed Historia. “Why the fuck would I tell her that? I don’t think I even saw her again.”

“Holy shit,” said Ymir, once again.

“Hey, how’s that whole ‘sparkling conversation’ thing going for you?” I called.

“Shut up.”

“Charming.”

“Well, what about you?” asked Historia, ignoring our graceless, drunken sparring. “You’re all… uh… gay. You must have some stories, too.”

“Me?” said Ymir. “Actually, no. I haven’t even told my parents yet, honestly.”

“So what? I haven’t either.”

“Why not? Are they…” Ymir trailed off, not sure how to ask just what type of parents Historia had.

Historia snorted. “What part of ‘rural Tennessee’ is unclear? My cousins are already married. Thanksgiving at my house means all the men drink beer while the women cook, and then we all eat, and then the women clean while the men drink more beer. We don’t talk about it, we just…do it.”

There was a pause while we considered. I was also from a small town in a conservative area. I was a sophomore in college while fifteen percent of my classmates had kids. But my family wasn’t like Historia’s, and talking about how my family was always careful to balance labor (because my mother’s first husband was an ass and there was no way in hell she was tying herself to another useless man) didn’t seem like the right thing to say. So instead, I just said, “Dude. That’s rough.”

“Yeah. Well. It doesn’t mean I don’t love them. And really, they might know already, but… I don’t really want to have that conversation.”

Another pause. This time, it was Ymir who broke the silence. “I’m in the same boat. I mean, pretty much. I’m not going to have a big sit down with my parents, but I don’t think I’ll have to? And besides, my sister might have figured it out before I did.”

“Wow,” said Marco. “I guess something similar happened with me, too? Like, I never told my parents, but that was because I… really didn’t have to. My dad was making gay jokes when I was in middle school, and then my mom had this whole ‘it’s okay, honey’ thing, and I was all ready to be like ‘mom what are you talking about I’m not gay’ and then there was this moment of ‘wait. shit. I think I am.’ and she just sort of… raised her eyebrows like ‘yeah, who woulda thunk’.

A brief chuckle, and then silence. It took me a moment to realize why no one else was picking up the conversation: it was my turn, so to speak. I knew about their families, and now they wanted to know about mine. Did I want to tell them? Not particularly. But then, what else are sleepovers for? Besides, there was a certain sense of drama to it. It was a good story, so long as you weren’t the protagonist. So I started talking.

“I didn’t tell my dad I was bisexual. I heard him walking to the bathroom at one in the morning and called him in on his way back because my - person - had… broken up with me, I guess, and I was crying. He sat with me until I stopped at about 2, and then he went back to bed. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to tell him not to tell my mom, and… yeah,” I was almost convinced I could see the speckles on the ceiling through the dark. How to continue, how much to tell them…

“So you didn’t want your mom to know?” asked Marco, once the silence had dragged on enough to feel more like a prompt than a period.

I continued without any real plan. “When I came out the breakfast the next morning, I knew I had to tell her. She’s always been paranoid that I like my dad more than her, and if I didn’t tell her and she found out some other way I knew she’d be mad. So she’s making breakfast and I’m sitting at the table trying to think what to say, and she says, ‘So, you’re a dyke now?’”

“Oh. Ouch,” offered Historia, her cringe audible.

“Just a little. So that happened, and then she immediately asks me if we’d had sex. Four times. Until I give her an answer. Then she tells me I can’t be gay because I had a crush on a guy in high school, and I tell her I’m not gay, I’m bisexual, and she says it back like I was speaking Greek, and honestly that gives you a pretty good idea how things went with coming out. 0/10. Do not recommend.”

“I guess not,” said Historia.

There was another pause. Then, from Marco, “Who was it? I mean, if you, like, want to tell me. Who’d you break up with? Do I know her?”

“So about the add/drop deadline -“

“It’s fine, Ymir.” Go big or go home. “I imagine you do know her. She’s very popular. We were close friends all last year, and had a brief thing in the last couple weeks of May. Over the summer, we talked for… hours. Every day.” ' _Who’s that you’re always talking to?' 'It’s just Sam, mom.'_ “I changed my ticket to get here the first day of move in, so we could spend time together - we were going to have dinner. Celebrate her birthday.” ' _My birthday’s in July.'  'I know; how does September 7th sound?'  'Perfect.'_ “As move in got closer, I felt like she was getting distant, but instead of talking to her about it I just kept trying to talk to her more and more, hoping she’d say something. I did a good job. She said,” _Don’t bring it up at school. It’s just not a good idea._ “She didn’t think we should see each other.”

“Did she say why?”

“No. I guess it just wasn’t working out - but in retrospect, I wasn’t very sensitive.”

“You? Insensitive? Never,” said Ymir, clearly trying to ease the tension that soul-baring generally creates.

“Only always,” I answered, accepting the joke. Silence set in again. I was starting to realize I wasn’t quite done talking. “The thing is… she said she didn’t want to see me, right? So I respect that. I don’t look for her, even when we’re with friends, I talk to her as little as possible. Boundaries. And then I’m watching a movie at Sasha’s, and she comes in, sits down next to me, and starts trying to feel me up.”

“Wait, what? In public?” said Historia, scandalized. Me too, Historia. God, I was tired.

“Yep. And then a few days later it happened again,” - _dinner at a packed table, laughing at Marco’s joke, a stocking foot next to mine on top of mine on my shin thigh groin ‘I think I’m done guys’ why -_ “So I’m thinking maybe she wants to get back together, yeah? So I invited her, and a couple other friends, over for drinks and cards last week. And it was great. Normal. Dumb card games, but it was fun, and then everyone goes home. Everyone except her.” And here it was, that thing I didn’t know how to describe. I was hoping that once I reached it, had it standing in front of me as the next in an evolutionary series, I would know what it was, how to talk about it. I didn’t. What I saw was as confused as always - tension, stiffness, hands, lips. One on top, then the other. Just one question; the wrong one. “We…”

“You had sex, right?” Thanks, Historia.

“I guess. And then she left-“

“Oh no,” said Marco

“I mean, that’s normal - or at least, I thought so. She always kicked me out in the spring, too; I didn’t think it was weird that she left when it was my room.”

“But…”

“I texted her the next morning to ask what was going on, or, you know, if she was okay, given we’d both been kinda out of it. She didn’t answer me for four days.” - _she’s not answering she hates me she has to what even happened oh my god what happened what if I -_ “And then she does. She says she wants to talk to me about something. So, you know, I’m thinking we’re going to talk about Friday, and I get all worked up to have that talk.”

“Did she show up?” prompted Historia.

“Oh, yeah. She knocked on the door, and I answer, and she…” _‘Can I ask you to do something for me?’ ‘Of course.’_ “She asked me to delete all our messages. All of them - phone and Facebook.” She wouldn’t look at me when she asked, just gazed at the wall behind me and to my left. “The thing is… it’s not just like, a couple texts here and there. We talked for hours, every single day, for weeks. It was over a thousand texts and over 30,000 Facebook messages. It was… a lot.” There was a small chance my voice had cracked.

“Wow. I mean… wow. Did she say why?”

“Career. She wants to do politics some day, maybe, and she’s always been paranoid about her online image.”

“Okay but like… they’re private messages, and they’re kind of yours too, right?”

“I mean, maybe, but I wasn’t going to argue with her. I said I’d do it.”

“Okay, but did you?”

“Yes? I wasn’t going to lie to her. Besides, she didn’t leave until she’d watched me - nothing personal. She just wanted to be sure.” That’s what she’d said, almost verbatim. The laptop first. Facebook still had everything, I’m sure - Facebook keeps it all. Dates. Stupid dares. Rants about parents and politics and homophobia and anti-semitism and racism. Sexts. Then the phone - more of the same. She watched me hit ‘Delete’, then ‘Are you sure you wish to delete these files? They will be gone forever.’ ‘Yes’. Then she thanked me and left as abruptly as she’d come. “And we haven’t spoken since.”

“Wow,” said Marco. She seemed to be trying to think of something to say. I didn’t really care what she said. I didn’t care about much of anything, right then. “That… that sucks. Ouch.”

“Yeah, well,” I grumbled, suddenly very done with the conversation. “Shit happens, as they say. And it’s not the worst thing in the world. I just. I will say that… I do wish she’d just talk to me. Even if it was just to tell me to fuck off, you know?”

“Oh yeah, I know,” Historia snorted. “No one likes awkward conversations, but I /hate/ waiting for one even more. It’s like pulling of a band-aid, except if they never came off without the yank.”

Ymir chuckled in the dark. I’d almost forgotten she was awake. “Me too. But I’m still not gonna talk to my parents. They’re like lots of Latino families - ‘not that there’s anything wrong with it’, unless it’s someone actually in the family.”

“Hey, at least yours pretend,” said Historia. Silence set in again. I could tell it was time to sleep, but no one wanted to just leave it at that.

Finally, Ymir spoke up. “Second try: the add-drop deadline. I have a course with this super cool professor, but it’s a 400-level and I’m fucking dying. On the other hand, if I drop it I need to pick and catch up in a new course and this professor is a goddess. What do?”

“Is this that professor who did the Medea screening? And then pointed and told you you were smart in front of the whole audience when you told her your thoughts?”

“How did you guess?”

“Psychic. Talk to the prof. If it’s going to be this bad all semester, consider dropping it. It’ll be hard to catch up in something else, but you don’t want to put hours and weeks into something you’ve go no shot in. Also see if you can find some grade info - you might be doing better than you think.”

“There’s the terse advice dispenser I’ve been missing.”

“Mmf. Bed time, I think,” I said, struck by a wave of exhaustion and no longer willing to pretend I was still interested in talking.

“Thanks again for having us over. ‘Night,” said Marco

I heard a few more breaths, I think, before drifting off. At least when I went down I was pretty sure Ymir and Historia were already asleep.


	4. Purple Hyacinth and Yellow Tulips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sports are hard. So are feelings. And being friends with Ymir.

“Oh, yeah, and my mom’s going to be visiting next week. It’s super convenient, really, ‘cause I’ve got that whole extra set of furniture - she doesn’t even need to find a hotel room. And I’ve already got the bed made. I guess I could wash the sheets, but I figure, eh, only you and Historia ever slept there, so…” I trailed off as we climbed the small hill between the lake and the soccer field.

Ymir hummed quietly. We were walking back to Reuters from practice, sadly absent Marco and Historia, who had somehow caught a ride with the upperclassmen when we weren’t paying attention. She cleared her throat, then said, “You should wash the sheets.”

“What? Why?” I asked, picking my way through the tall grass.

“Just… trust me. Wash them.”

“Okay but like why?” I said, turning at the top of the hill. Ymir’s eyes were wider than usual, she was chewing on her lip; she looked almost panicked. I, on the other hand, was completely blank. “What…” then it clicked. “Ymir. You didn’t.”

She shrugged helplessly. “I - uh - I did. I think. If that’s what you mean.”

“OhmygodYmirwhy -“

“Okay it happened but just wash your sheets it’ll be fine.”

“No that’ll be fine, but like, Ymir. Gross. My door was open -”

“You were asleep!”

“-and Marco, lord, _Marco’s_ just asleep on the floor four feet away -“

“She was asleep too! It’s not a big deal, really. I don’t think. It is weird in retrospect, but… it just kinda happened.”

“As these things do,” I grumbled, slightly nauseous.

“…sorry,” Ymir said, smiling sheepishly. She’d now crested the hill beside me, so I punched her. Gently. In the shoulder. She raised her hands in surrender and said, “No really, I shoulda got up and closed your door and given Marco some headphones or something. There are ways.”

“You’re terrible. Reprehensible,” I muttered as we resumed the walk back to Reuters. “And I’m not talking to you.”

“That’s cool. Hey, did you hear about the talk tonight? Some guy wants to reverse engineer dinosaurs from chickens.” She paused. I didn’t tell her that even if you could reactivate a variety of saurian features in latent avian DNA, what you produced wouldn’t be a dinosaur so much as an approximation of the rough concept of a dinosaur and anyway what Jack Horner knows about genetics could fit in a thimble. A small thimble. Like, the kind one would use to teach small children.

“And then there’s that Anscombe gay marriage debate Friday. I was thinking maybe I should crash; I know some other folks are going to show up. Sit in the front row while wearing obnoxious rainbows, signs, all that good stuff,” she mused. I thought this was an excellent idea. I also had different excellent idea, involving their minimalist, easily parodied, poster design. I did not share this idea.

We’d gotten about halfway through the twenty-minute walk back when Ymir said, “Oh, and there’s open Tae Kwon Do practice tonight.” Interesting. Mikasa would be there. It was probably a bad idea to go on a day when I also had rugby practice, but… again, Mikasa would be there, and Sam wouldn’t. (/But what if she is? She’d been talking about getting in shape-/) began a thought I rapidly cut off; Sam wouldn’t be there, and if she was then I wouldn’t be for long). The chances of my joining the team were about the size of Horner’s thimble, but still. Opening conversation. All that good stuff. Now when did Ymir say it was? “Not that you’d be interested in going. So I guess there’s no reason for me to keep talking about it.”

That bastard. We made it to the other side of a parking lot, within sight of the south end of Reuters. I chewed my lip. Ymir was now whistling innocently as we walked. I ground my teeth. She pointed out a squirrel. I said, “When?”

“Oh, hey, here comes another one. Looks like it’s after that same specific branch, for some unknowable reason-“

“Ymir, when is Tae Kwon Do practice?” I interrupted.

“Oh, hey, sorry, didn’t hear you for a second there. It’s in the main gym, wrestling room below the locker level, at 8.”

I checked my phone. It was nearly seven; I had just enough time to eat and get to the gym with a few minutes for a quick prayer against blatant humiliation and/or stomach cramps. I picked up the pace to the dining hall and groaned - my legs were already complaining. This was going to be a long evening.

As it turns out, I had entirely undersold the length of my evening. In reality, it seemed to be stuck in some sort of time eddy, such that minutes lasted hours and I must have been holding this stupid warmup elbow plank for at least a day. Possibly several. I puffed out a breath and sucked in another and waited for either the instructor to call a halt or my hips to sag all the way to the mat. On the bright side, Sam was indeed nowhere to be seen.

“Enough,” called the instructor from the front of the room. I collapsed on the mat. The cool, sweat-infused rubber coating had never felt so comforting. “Switch to climbers.” All around me, the white-clad students were drawing themselves up into tall planks. I huffed into the mat, caught sight of Eren springing confidently into posture a few people away, and dragged myself up just in time to hear “Begin.”

And so it went, one exercise followed immediately by another. It honestly wasn’t more objectively difficult than a rugby warmup, just different in all the ways you’d expect (less running more punching), and also my second major practice in four hours. Also the opening exercises were, for some ungodly reason, over half an hour long. And then there were the rolls. Good lord, the rolls, back and forth, up and down the mat, in a line such that if you were a fraction of a second slower on each roll you eventually ended up with a gap half the room wide between you and the next person plus a line of students behind you. I was almost grateful when one of the senseis pulled me aside to offer some advice on the matter. Apparently my back wasn’t rounded enough, which caused my shoulders to smack awkwardly on the mat and killed my momentum. By the time we figured something out, a compromise between my rigidity and the actual right way, the exercise was over, along with the warmup.

The end of the warmup apparently triggered a water break, for which I was profoundly grateful. I slumped off the mat and towards the corner where my shoes and water bottle patiently waited.

As I unscrewed the cap, a gratingly familiar voice behind me said, “You’re supposed to bow.”

I managed to turn a violent, nearly waterfall-inducing twitch into a slightly sudden lowering of the bottle and turned to see, surprise surprise, Eren judging me. “Excuse me?”

“When you leave the mat. You’re supposed to bow as you step backwards, to show respect.” She was just a hair closer than I wanted her to be - not close enough to make me back up, but close enough that I wished she would.

“That is usually why one bows,” I said, drinking again. When I put the bottle down, she was still standing there, staring. It would have been creepy if I hadn’t also suspected that she was hiding a smile. Still, I sighed and said “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Sounds good. Should be easy to find in there, yeah? Given it’s probably all alone,” she said, no longer suppressing her grin.

“Ha ha, you’re a very funny person,” I deadpanned, looking around for Mikasa. She was still on the mat, listening to one of the other blackbelts talk - probably about whatever hell it was we were going to inhabit for the rest of practice. “Don’t you have a water bottle to go home to?” I asked Eren, standing on my toes to look over her head.

“I just use the fountain. You, on the other hand, look like you could use an ice bucket,” she said, raising one eyebrow. “Are you okay?”

I grimaced and raised one hand to feel my face. Burning. Of course. “I’m fine. I flush really hard, but it’s no big deal. Genetic. Apparently when my mom was in high school, the coach kept taking her off the court early because he thought she was going to have a heart attack, and it took her years to figure out what he thought was wrong.”

“Sure the workout wasn’t just a bit much?” she said, still smiling. I successfully resisted the urge to try and tackle the smile off her face.

“Of course not. It was about the same as a rugby warmup, really - it’s just that I already did one practice today. Shockingly, I am getting tired during my third hour of physical activity between now and 4:30.”

Eren shrugged and turned back toward the mat. I took the opportunity to chug as much water as I could without making myself sick before the sensei called us back, which he did almost immediately. I screwed the cap back on and took a place as surreptitiously close to Mikasa as possible without being a total creep. Unfortunately, this put me directly across from Eren; fortunately, she seemed to be laser focused on the instructor. It occurred to me that they were speaking, that I should probably be paying attention, and also that I could really, really use a shower.

“…so go ahead and pair off. Unless you’re new and have never done high kicks before; in that case go to the back wall with Mikasa. She’ll get you pointed in the right direction.”

The rows dissolved as people pair off. Most students just turned to the person next to them and nodded before squaring off. I headed to the back of the room, and passed Eren on my way; she was staring at the air above her partner’s head as though it had insulted her mother, grandmother, and hair style. Then she whipped her foot up past the left side of her partner’s face, somehow over the boy’s head, and down the right side, so fast I barely saw it except for a slight stutter at the top of the arch. I almost stopped walking. I definitely should have been paying attention.

“How many of you have ever done high kicks like this before?” asked Mikasa, face pleasantly neutral, of the three late rookies standing around her.

One person raised his hand, a tall black student who had brought his own dobok. Mikasa looked him up and down, then said. “Would you mind helping me with a demonstration?”

He shook his head, then said “What do you need me to do?”

“Just stand as still as possible,” said Mikasa as she stepped up to within a few feet of him. “When we - and you eventually - practice high kicks, we like to use each other for height bars. It’s also a trust exercise, a little. Watch the path my foot takes.” He was at least five inches taller than she was. She snapped her leg up and cleared the top of his head by about an inch. “See that? It’s an A-shape motion. For now, at least, we’re not trying to kick anyone in the face.” She stepped back. “Now try it - just the motion, don’t partner up.”

I took a couple steps back and kicked as high as I could. My foot came up to about mid chest, which I personally thought was pretty good - at least until I noticed the girl to my left, a shorter brunette with a stubby ponytail and a dour expression who also had zero experience, kicking up to her nose. And the boy with the dobok up to his own eyebrows. I grimaced and tried the other leg, which came up a few inches below my original high point.

Mikasa looked around the circle slowly. She gave the boy some tips on extending his knee, nodded through the girl’s kicks, and then turned to me and waited. I kicked, flushed mostly with exercise. In my defense, it was better than the first one. Mikasa shook her head infinitesimally; doubtless I wasn’t meant to notice. Then she said, “It’s not just about getting as much power as you can. Focus on outlining that A I showed you before you hurt yourself overextending.”

I nodded, still flushed. She stood there, looking at me. “Of course,” I said. She stood there - waiting for me to try it again. I stifled a groan, took a deep breath, and kicked, trying to visualize the A from my toe. Swing at the hip. All that good stuff.

“Better,” said Mikasa, stepping back to her place in the circle. “Try it again, five each leg. I’ll jump in if I think you’re going to dislocate something.”

I took another breath, then huffed and swung, visualizing the shape. It was better, I thought, and so was the one after that. I wasn’t getting as much air, but it was close, and Mikasa said to focus on form anyway, and that was definitely getting better. Maybe I wasn’t so terrible after all. I switched to my right leg and put in another two kicks before Mikasa physically stopped me. “Your arch is getting better, but you need to fix your foot. You don’t want to strike with the top surface of your foot; you’ll damage the blood vessels, or hitting the tendons is gonna hurt. Angle your foot so you’d hit with the edge.”

I nodded, waited for a moment on the slim chance she’d turn away, then bit my lip and tried again.

“No. Watch me,” she said. I did. I understood what she was doing, but that didn’t mean I could do it myself. Still, I tried. She made a vain effort to correct me for the next few moments, but by then the others were done and watching awkwardly, and I wasn’t progressing fast enough for her to have any reason to believe I’d fix it soon, so she eventually just said, “You’ll get it one day, I guess” and stepped back to her teaching corner.

The rest of the practice passed more or less unremarkably, except for the part where I discovered that the human body will eventually reach a level of muscular exhaustion wherein all motion is painful, but only in a dull, distant way. I figured this out somewhere between the fourth variation on pushups and the third set of ‘drop down now stand up on cadence’ in the end of practice workout. Mikasa, naturally, kept her form perfect all the way to the end, barely slowing down, on only seconds of rest between sets. Eren, on the other hand, got sloppy as time went on, and I found myself noting with a hint of satisfaction when her form began to fall apart near the end, while mine stayed solid. Of course, I couldn’t really feel my muscles by then, and also I was slowing down while Eren’s every move seemed to be an attempt to punch the exercise into submission, but we take what we can get.

At the very end of practice, after I’d stepped off the mat (yes, with a bow) and was once again in the corner, this time struggling with my shoelaces, I heard an increasingly familiar voice. “She won’t like you back, you know.”

I dropped the laces and straightened, barely noticing the pain in the motion. I’m sure I would have been more annoyed if I hadn’t been so tired. Sure enough, Eren was standing over me, head tilted and almond-shaped eyes laser focused. “Excuse me?”

“Mikasa. She won’t reciprocate your crush,” Eren said slowly, like she was explaining to a child why the sun went down every day.

“And what,” I said, equally slowly, resisting the urge to check who was in earshot, “makes you think I have a crush on Mikasa?”

Eren snorted. “What are you doing here? Besides, everyone gets a crush on Mikasa. You should drop yours.” Before I could reply, she turned back towards the door (where Mikasa leaned on the frame, waiting for her), waved over her shoulder, and said “See you around.”

I watched them go, then cursed quietly and went back to the shoe tying. I did not have a crush on Mikasa. Or at least… well, Eren had nothing to worry about; I wouldn’t be pursuing anyone until I could think about my past romance without wanting to curl up into a vegetative little ball. I stood, grabbed my water bottle, and steeled myself to tell the sensei that as much as I’d enjoyed his class, he shouldn’t expect to see me Wednesday.


	5. Winter Jasmine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wait this is a Erejean fic, I should get on that.

“So when’s your flight out?”

“Um, tomorrow afternoon.”

“Tomorrow-tomorrow or today-tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow-tomorrow.”

“Oh. Too bad, mine’s today-tomorrow. Same flight, though.”

It was early, or late, depending on how you looked at it. Sasha’s latest viewing shenanigans had been whittled from a party of several to a party of three - me, her, and Eren. Nearly everyone else had left campus already, home for break. Eren was flying out tomorrow - well, today - and had brought her bags down to Sasha’s in an effort to shorten the walk to the train. Carnegie was, after all, a world away. I was there because I could be. I had nowhere to go, nothing to do, so why not watch giant robots punch sea monsters at four in the morning?

That was past, though. The sun was coming up. The reflections off the fresh snow outside lit Sasha’s room with a stark glow I rarely saw at school. The three of us were scattered around the room, wrapped in blankets even though the room was warm enough - Sasha in her bed, Eren on Hannah’s, and me on the floor. We’d been sitting in companionable silence, too tired to think of something new to put on and too stubborn to go to sleep.

I was so tired. Still, I was looking forward to going home, even if that would involve seeing my sisters - at least we had real winter there. Even if the campus had finally realized it was December. “I’ve never seen Fullmetal Alchemist,” I said, pulling myself out of me reverie to make a suggestion.

Sasha stared at me over her footboard. “Well, that’s settled, then,” she said. Eren chuckled from across the room. We settled back in.

I realized about three hours later that I honestly had no memory of anything after episode 4 and I’d need to rewatch the rest, but I was too comfortable to say anything. As I lay between the beds, contemplating the pros and cons of napping (the pro list had about 14 items, the con was just about to 2), there was an earsplitting drum snare. My phone was ringing. I just about gave myself a heart attack.

Painful though the noise was, and as many pillows as Eren and Sasha threw in my direction, it took far too long to actually get the phone to my ear. “Yeah?”

“Oh, I didn’t wake you up, did I?” said a voice I recognized. My oldest sister. Why would she call today?

“Um, not exactly. What’s up?”

“I just wanted to check and see if you wanted me to meet you at the airport today. You could sleep in a bed instead of the terminal for once.”

Oh. She asked this every time I flew through her city, but I never took her up on it - I think it made her feel better to ask, though. “Oh, no, that’s fine, I’ll just - wait, today?”

“Um, yeah? You get in tonight on flight 7, right?”

“Um,” I said, dragging my computer out from under Hannah’s bed. “I thought it was tomorrow…” I opened the confirmation. It was not tomorrow. “…but now that I look at it, it’s definitely today.” I could hear Eren stifling giggles and did my best to glare at her while talking my sister down. “No, yeah, it’s a good thing you called… no, I’ll definitely make it… that’s right. Don’t worry about coming to get me. Don’t worry about it, I’ll only be in the airport like 9 hours, and if you get me it’s an hour each way plus security… Yeah, I know you don’t mind, but still… See you later. Love you too.” I hung up and diverted my attention to Sasha. “Excuse me, I need to pack.”

“Hell yes you do. We need to catch the train in like… less than two hours,” Eren interjected.

I considered snarling over her use of ‘we’, but she was right - leaving from the same place, getting on the same flight, there was no reason for us not to travel together, especially considering the fact that the train only left every hour and a half. If I missed Eren’s, I’d miss the flight. Well, traveling with Eren… wasn’t the worst thing that’d happened to me this week.

“Dude, what’re you doing? Get out of here! Do you need help packing?” Sasha asked. She looked genuinely concerned.

“What? No. I do not need help packing. I’ll be back in like an hour,” I said. And I was - I packed a weekend bag nearly every week in high school, and besides, I was going home. It’s not like I had to carry my life on my back. So I came back within forty minutes, backpack and suitcase in hand, and we passed what was left of our time in near silence - or at least I did. Eren and Sasha didn’t seem to have any trouble chatting (possibly because neither of them were facing the prospect of being stuck on a plane with Eren for five hours).

An hour later, it was time to say our goodbyes. I felt a little sorry for Sasha, alone in her snowlit room, but she’d be shipping out the next day. Besides, her farewell took the form of “Dude, I can’t believe you almost missed your flight because you forgot what day it was,” so my sympathy was limited.

And that’s how Eren and I wound up trudging toward the train, our bags leaving long tracks in the rapidly-gathering snow. She kept breaking out in a grin as we walked, chuckling softly. “‘But now that I look at it’…”. I could feel my jaw getting tighter as we walked; my cheeks may have been reddening with more than the cold. Finally (god, when did the walk get so long?) we made got to the station. They’d done away with tellers ages ago, so we headed to the ticket machines.

The train was already in the station - we were on time, but still, nothing like being later than the train to get your pulse up. Two machines, two travelers. We’d be fine. I went for credit first, but the reader was busted, so I reluctantly slid a $20 into the cash slot. I took my change, then turned and headed for the train. I was halfway up the stairs when I heard “Shitting fuck - just take it, you bastard -“

It was Eren, obviously, having some very visible issues getting her ticket. “What’s your problem?”

She turned on me, lips pulled back in a snarl. “This useless fucking machine won’t read my card.”

“So try the other one.”

“I already did, smartass!”

“Jesus, I was just asking. So use cash.”

A pause. The train was still at the station. The pause lengthened. “…I’m out.”

“You’re out of cash?”

“Did I stutter? I have money on my card; I figured I’d just use that until I got home.”

I raised my eyebrows and made a futile attempt to suppress a smirk. “So… are you gonna ask me for cash?”

“…no.”

“Too bad, I’m giving it to you anyway,” I said, marching to the machine and feeding it a bill before Eren could protest. “Now get on the damn train before we both miss it.”

Eren gritted her teeth, took the ticket, and we hustled up the stairs, suitcases in hand. Most of campus had already left, so we didn’t have any trouble finding a booth to fall into as the train left the station. Which it did. Literally seconds after we boarded. As the train pulled out, I reached the awkward realization that I was Sitting Across from Eren, and would continue to do so for the next hour and a half, at which point I would take a brief break and then transition to Sitting Next to Eren for the next five hours. And yes, I’d already know that we’d be traveling together, but sometimes you don’t quite realize what that entails until you’re sitting in a train booth trying to figure out the least awkward way to interlock your knees.

“Can you not?” Eren asked, referring to said knee, which was intruding about an inch between hers.

“Look, it’s not my fault my femur’s longer than this midget seat. Besides, you picked the booth, smart one.”

She muttered something under her breath and pointedly switched to looking out the window. I resisted the urge to ask what exactly was so wrong with my reasoning and stared out the window too. It was a gorgeous day, really - sunny, glowing. The snow was that kind of fresh & fluffy that people write poems about.

The first train ride was short - only about five minutes, just to get you from campus to mainline. The campus line was also coordinated with the main line, so that the main line would pull in just a minute after the commuter. We’d have to rush again, but at least we wouldn’t have to buy a second set of tickets.

The campus train ground to a halt. Eren got up, swung her suitcase off her rack, and headed straight for the door. I rose slightly more slowly, put on my backpack, grabbed my suitcase, did a quick sweep of the booth, and noticed a shiny, blue, emphatically not-my backpack in the seat across from me. “Eren!” I yelled down the aisle, just in time to see the wheels of her bag skitter around the corner. I swore under my breath, sighed, and grabbed the backpack. _Fine. Let’s see how long it takes her to notice._

So I hurried out of the train, down the platform, through the tunnel, and up the other side just as the main line train was arriving. “Thanks for waiting,” I muttered as I slid up beside Eren.

“You’re fine,” she snorted.

We boarded the train. We sat down at another small booth, since it was the first thing we saw and the train was starting to pull away. We stowed our suitcases in the rack above our seats. I tossed my backpack in the seat by the window. Eren sat down in the aisle seat across from my backpack. I sat down across from her and slung her backpack into the seat next to her.

“That’s -“ she started, then cut off. She stared at me. I smiled benignly. She sighed. “Thanks.”

“You forgot it on the other train.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“…and I thought I was a mess.”

“You _are_ a mess.”

“Yeah, well, look who had to borrow cash for a ticket and then forgot their backpack on the first train.”

“I said thank you!”

Her cheeks were bright, her mouth was set. Unless I was very much mistaken, she was embarrassed. My smile had shifted from ironic to genuine. “You’re welcome.”

She looked out the window. My smile slipped and disappeared. Unable to think of anything else to say, I took out my phone. _On the train to the airport, on time for my flight. Thanks again for the call._ Send. I composed a similar text to my parents. It was my second year at school, but they still liked to know that I wasn’t sleeping through my flight.

“I’ll buy you dinner.”

I nearly sent half a text. “Um. What?”

Eren was still glaring out the window. “When we get to the airport, I’ll buy us both dinner. To make up for the train ticket.”

I squirmed a bit at her seriousness. Of course I was gonna raz her after she and Sash had roasted me for the date thing, but I wasn’t actually put out over a train ticket. “You don’t have to. It’s not a big deal.”

“I’m buying dinner.”

“If you insist. Hopefully every card reader in the airport’s not busted.”

“Then I’ll pay you back after break,” she said. She still wasn’t looking at me.

“Well, if you can’t get a hold of cash you can always pay me back in eye contact.”

She finally cracked a smile. She even managed to stop looking out the window for a couple seconds. “Sorry. I’m just… distracted.”

“…okay,” I said, and waited for her to elaborate. She did not, which naturally made me start thinking about just what was so distracting. It wasn’t academic - we didn’t have finals until after break, supposedly so we’d have more study time. It probably wasn’t health-related. Family? Maybe returning home for break wasn’t something Eren looked forward to. But she’d seemed fine when she got to Sasha’s room, with her bags, and Armin and Mikasa…

I was flying home with Eren. Just me. Not her all-but-sister or her best friend, me. “So, did Mikasa get a different plane back?” I asked, throwing caution out on the street and handing all his possessions to curiosity.

“Mikasa,” said Eren slowly, “Is staying on campus for the next couple days. Extra work for her engineering project.”

“She has a project as a sophomore?”

“Obviously.”

Okay. Fine. It wasn’t her favorite topic, I get that, but honestly. I was done trying to make pleasant conversation. If she wanted to spend the entire train ride staring out the window, that was great. Staring out windows is hardly a unique skill.

So I did. For at least half the ride, we just sat, staring out the window. The snow went from the pristine white coat of fields and forests to the rapidly graying cover on cities and back again. Traveling on winter break was always a little odd - leaving finals until after break was supposed to give us more time to study, but… last year, at least, I didn’t touch a book all through the three weeks of break. The general consensus was having exams after break didn’t really do much except give us plenty of time to forget the entire semester, with the bonus side effect of hanging over our heads all month to make sure we’d spend the whole time feeling guilty about not studying. Or we could study, but who does that?

_ Thump. _

I made a not-entirely-coherent noise and spun towards Eren. She was staring out the window. My shin was stinging. I pursed my lips and looked back out - we were passing one of the graying-city scenes.

_ Thump. _

I didn’t do any spinning this time. I turned my head infinitesimally to the right. Eren was still gazing out the window, but now there was a small smile on her face. My other shin was now stinging as well. That bastard. Did she think I wasn’t going to make a big deal about it because we were in public and it would cause a scene? If so, she knew very little about my willingness to make scenes.

_Thump._ My toe hit the outside of her right leg just above the point of her ankle. Her smile deepened.

From there, the next five or so minutes devolved into a blur of feet and quiet curses. She left wet, muddy marks on my pants; I managed to get a solid imprint of the sole of my shoe over a significant part of her jeans. We both made a gallant effort to continue staring out the window, but the pretense dropped the moment I brought my heel down on the soft spot under her ankle joint.

“You little -“

“Shut up, Eren. We’re in public.”

“In public, my - ouch! Dammit!”

“You started it,” I said, as nonchalantly as I could. I think the effect was somewhat undercut by my strained breathing, but what can you do.

“And I’m gonna finish it, too,” she hissed, drawing back her right foot. I saw death coming for me in the form of a martial-arts-refined foot, and instead of meeting it head on, I pulled my legs up all the way onto the seat next to her. Her shin hit the metal underside of my seat with a satisfying thud. She clutched her leg, cursing quietly. I stared out the window, trying not to laugh.

She settled down over the course of the next several minutes, but which time we were almost at the airport stop. Instead of snarling at me, she grinned ruefully and settled back in her seat, waiting quietly for us to arrive. I still didn’t take my eyes off her for long the rest of the trip, wary of another attack. The light reflected off the snow caught in her eyes. I’d never really seen her smile before - I mean, of course I had. Fleeting smiles at Mikasa and Armin, even Sasha. Grins. This wasn’t really either of those things. She looked content. Between her expression and the light, she almost looked like a painting; at least one of those pictures people take of strangers on public transport that later turn up on the front page of Instagram and no one can say quite why.

The train ground to a halt. “Don’t forget your backpack,” I said as I swung my own over my shoulder.

Eren raised one eyebrow. “Don’t worry about my backpack - worry about what you want for dinner.”

Of all the directions I was prepared for our conversation to take, that was not one. “…let’s wait and see what’s one the other side of security? Don’t want to miss our flight because we couldn’t forgo a sushi stop.”

“Fine. Mile-long line and free gropes, here we come.”

I grimaced at the back of her head as we rode the escalator from the train toward security, roller bags adding to the trail of dirty, melted snow at the terminal entrance. It wasn’t like I was eager for TSA either, but we’d have to go through either way. We picked up our boarding passes, then joined the back of the security line. I extracted my wallet from under three layers of clothing, flipped it open, and noticed the conspicuous brown cloth behind one of the transparent card slots.

“…well, I hope they let you board a plane with student ID.”

“Are you serious? You don’t have state ID?” Eren said, twisting her head around to stare at me.

I shrugged. “I left my driver’s license at home on accident. I’ll pick it up over break. Besides, student ID’s got my picture on it too - it’ll be fine.”

“…unbelievable,” Eren muttered, shaking her head. I shrugged behind her. I’d gotten down here with student ID, after all, it was just a question of East Coast security. As it turned out, they were a little more suspicious, but only a little - at least here TSA knew which state my school was in. I slid through security with little more than a reminder to track down my license and a quick grin for Eren, who looked the other way and focused on wresting her laptop from her bag. The fact that I was then randomly selected for additional screening probably didn’t have anything to do with it (no matter what Eren may have implied).

After I finished convincing TSA I wasn’t a smuggler, we looked for a place to eat. By now both of us were more or less starving; Sasha goes to some lengths to provide snacks but frankly I always felt awkward eating her stuff. It seems like whatever I’m chewing on is the one thing she was most looking forward to, and wouldn’t you know it, I’ve got the last one. Besides, the dining halls had been closed for more than a day, and no amount of pocky will make up for a lack of meals. Unfortunately, every place within 100 yards of security seemed to either A) cost nearly as much as a plane ticket, never mind a train ticket, or B) had a $15 price point but meals consisting of half a dry sandwich.

“What was that about exploring our options on the other side of security?” Eren asked as we stared at our fourth $30 hamburger menu.

“You know what, at least we’re on time. We board in like fifteen minutes; staying on the other side could have fucked us over.”

“Uh-huh. You know, Jean, the thing about ‘exploring options’ is that you need options.”

“And I see one right over there,” I said, pointing to the end of the concourse. Chinese food. Bad airport Chinese food, but it was a meal for $10, and at this point I was very ready for a meal.

We race walked past gate 21 straight to the Panda Express. She got a two-entree combo, Schezwan chicken and sweet-and-sour-pork. I did the same, but with sesame chicken and Mongolian beef, plus an eggroll. Eren gave me a look while fishing for her card. I pointed out that the ticket cost me $16.50 and dinner was $12. She grunted and signed the slip, and we headed for our gate. We probably made something of a sight for all the middle-aged families visiting their elderly parents - two college students, all dark circles, ill-fitting clothes and beat-up backpacks, arriving with five minutes to boarding with our styrofoam boxes of Chinese food. It didn’t help that the moment we arrived at the gate we dropped in the last two side-by-side seats (displacing a rather shiny briefcase), whipped out our plastic silverware, and began using our spoons as a particularly enthusiastic stablehand might a shovel.

The plane started boarding just after we sat down. We stayed in our seats, eating quickly, as the line dwindled. Finally there were just under ten people left. I tossed the takeout container, complete with the last few bites of rice, and headed for the boarding bridge, Eren just behind me. We boarded without (further) incident. Eren had the window seat; no one had claimed the middle next to her so I just sat there and waited to be displaced. I realized as the very last few passengers hurried on board that I actually didn’t hope one of them would move me.

The plane was loaded, the door was closed, and I was still sitting next to Eren. Wonders never cease. Still, as much as Eren hadn’t made me want to run away screaming so far today, five hours is a long time to do nothing but sit and chat. I rummaged through my bag until I found the book I was reading - one of my class books, actually, that I’d failed to read over the real semester - and started in. Eren had a similar idea, it seemed, down to the assigned reading bit. She seemed completely immersed in a volume on the history of cross-dressing in Turkey.

“Which class is that for?” I asked. When she looked up, vaguely disoriented, I jabbed my book at hers.

“Oh, this. It’s not for a class, I just found it in the library and wanted to read it.”

“So you just… picked it up out of personal interest?” I said. On the one hand, it really did look interesting. On the other, it was a bit much to pick up something with print that small just because, especially considering how much other stuff we had to read to get through the week.

“Yes. Is there something you’d like to comment on, Kirchstein?” she said, tone quietly threatening.

“Nope. It looks interesting, actually. Frankly I’m just surprised you have time to read for pleasure.”

Her expression softened a little. “It is interesting. You know the Ottomans used to have a caste of dancers called Koceks, who started training at around seven and went for four to six years before being considered qualified? They had their own songs and dances, just for them, but the whole time they were supposed to dress and act like women. So, once your voice dropped or your beard grew in, that was it - you’re out. They weren’t eunuchs or anything, just…dancers.”

I looked at the book in my hand. _The New Jim Crow._ I had my sticky page markers out and everything, but somehow I wasn’t looking forward to starting it. “So, what happened to them?”

“Well, a couple things,” she said. “Apparently they were really popular tavern entertainers, and they used to dance with the patrons before the performance proper. There was also a strong, uh, sexual aspect to the whole thing. And apparently the patrons would get so worked up they’d literally fight for the Kocek’s attention, and sometimes kill each other, so the sultan at the time outlawed the whole bit. After that they just kind of fell out of fashion over the next 50 years - by the 1900s they were more or less gone.”

“Wait, so did they just not have public female dancers at the time?”

She smiled crookedly. “Oh, they did. Cengi - belly dancers. But the Koceks were way, way more popular. There’s even recorded cases of jealous Cengi murdering Koceks.”

I grimaced. Less depressing than _The New Jim Crow_ , yes. Light bedtime reading, no. I ran my thumb over the cover of my book, and flipped absently through the pages. “Funny how that happens.”

She shrugged. “Maybe I’ll write a paper on it next year, but for now it’s just interesting.”

Our conversation was cut a bit short there by the beginning of the safety demonstration. Once the plane was in the air, though, conversation resumed - more Turkish cross dressing, and then Eren made the mistake of asking about _my_ readings and was treated to a half-hour rant on the contents of my race and public policy class. The class discussions, I told her, were almost as depressing as the reading. Everyone in my discussion group was politics, public policy, or econ, and they were every one afraid to call a spade a spade. The grad student leading - one of three people of color in the room - had to prompt the class to actually talk about race. Some of the students would consistently avoid discussing race in their class on race. I was the only science major in the group, and as such felt it was my job (and personality, a bit) to be blunt. At least the preceptor seemed to appreciate it. From there we discussed some of her work, a bit in race, mostly in gender, all from a more academic as-a-social-construct perspective. Cultural differences between Tae Kwon Do and rugby. Eventually whether we preferred dogs or cats (for the record, I’m a cat person - not that I don’t like dogs, but they’re mostly too overbearing; Eren apparently “loves them both”, which is an obvious cop out but she wouldn’t say anything else, except that if I kept pestering her about it she’d pop the emergency door and throw me out). All told, by the time the flight landed I’d only read 150 pages, or about half what I’d thought going in. It wasn’t even particularly difficult reading. I just… kept getting distracted.

We walked down the concourse together, across the country from where we started - me to buy coffee at the food court, her to leave the airport and go home to her family. I didn’t think anything of it until we got to the junction between the food court and the exit. She stopped suddenly. I’d all but forgotten that she wouldn’t be coming with me on my next flight, and slowed to a stop a few feet ahead. Finally, it clicked.

“So, this is it?” I said, voice suddenly strained. Awkward.

She nodded, completely casual, but silent.

“Is your family picking you up? Do… do you want to grab coffee or something first?” I said. I rubbed my ear.

“Nah, that’s okay - my dad’s probably already at the baggage claim waiting for me.”

“Okay. I guess I’ll see you later then.” I turned towards the coffee stand.

“Hey, Jean,” she said. I looked over my shoulder. “Have a good flight. Don’t get robbed in the terminal.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I won’t. And I won’t forget my backpack on the courtesy shuttle, either. But thanks.”

“You really can’t take a friendly comment, can you?” she sighed. She looked tired; more than that, she looked weary. I shrugged.

“See you after break. Have a safe drive,” I said. There was a brief pause before I turned away again. It took much more effort than I’d anticipated to stop mapping her face.


	6. Lincoln Lilacs

My return flight had been booked at the same time as my flight out. Three weeks of awkward family interactions (and amazing food) later, at the very end of break, I finally texted Eren to find out if we’d be on the same flight back to campus.

_Hey, when’re you flying back?_

She replied about 4 hours later. I’d like to say I’d all but forgotten I’d texted her in the first place. I had not. _Flight 5 on the 5th. You?_

_Same flight, but on the 3rd._ I liked to get back early, even though it meant that I wouldn’t be fed for the first couple days, so that I could settle in for a while and still have all the time I was meant to spend working on campus. Eren apparently didn’t share my proclivity for premature arrivals. I realized via a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach that I wished she did. In fact, I was… disappointed. Sad that we wouldn’t be flying back together, like we’d flown home. Maybe even sad that it would be all of two days before she got back to campus.

Which was… fine. I would also have been sad to find out I wouldn’t be traveling with Ymir, or Armin, or… no. This was too much - my guts felt like I’d missed multiple meals. But it didn’t make sense. I didn’t even know Eren that well - how could I have such a strong reaction to not seeing her for a few more days? Unless… unless. Oh no. _I fucked up_. After the initial frozen moment of disbelief, I dropped my phone and buried my face in my pillow. Why? Why would I do this? I still cried over Samantha every couple weeks. I thought about her every day. Every time I got a text, I wanted it to be from her - I wanted her to forgive me so, so much. And now, my _stupid, stupid_ brain had decided that all that was completely irrelevant, and you know what Jean needs right now? A new crush. I groaned into my pillow until I ran out of breath.

_Okay. Okay. This is the dumbest thing I’ve done all year, but you know what. It’s happening. Time to deal with it._ My first instinct was just to pretend that it wasn’t happening, but the more I thought about it the more I was certain that would be useless. I still saw Eren frequently, if not constantly, and doing nothing would just give me the urge to do something stupid every time I saw her. Actually acting on the crush was also completely out of the question, of course. For one thing, it was Eren. We had a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming a couple; maybe she wasn’t as crazy as I’d thought at first, but it was still Eren. For another, it would be a distraction. And… and if I was completely honest with myself, I wasn’t ready. Samantha and I had gone down like the Hindenburg. It wasn’t that I seriously thought we still had a chance, but… I just wasn’t ready. _Not healthy enough_. Who would want to date someone who still sobbed over their ex? Who wondered every day if she was okay, if she hated me, if, if, if. Confession was out of the question.

So I needed something, some sort of action, that would make me feel better but have zero chance of leading to anything. I wasn’t going to build a shrine to her or kiss her picture before bed every day - I’m not that crazy, no matter what Ymir says - but there had to be something. I could write her letters and then not send them… but that was still a little too stalker-y. Send them unsigned? Urgh, no, that was worse. Affectionate, but not intimate, that was the ticket - the idea was to wean me off the stupid crush, not add ‘dead-end letters to the uninterested’ to my list of emotional crutches.

I could give her something. Just leave little gifts outside her door, or whatever. Not chocolates - too expensive, and edibles have all those weird mental strings. Like would you eat something left by who knows who? Probably not, if you value your liver. Flowers. Everyone likes flowers. And as long as you don’t leave a dozen red roses, they don’t seem like you’re waiting outside the window to spirit her away. I recalled the Reuter’s welcome bouquet, wilting in the trash below the dining hall on a Thursday afternoon. I wouldn’t even need to spend money. I’d just take them before they could be thrown out, wrap them up, and leave them outside Eren’s door. It was perfect. Less like a monument than a game, something I could succeed in. And then, when the crush relented and I lost interest, I could just… stop. No harm done. And, you know, everyone likes flowers.

I took a deep breath. Everything was going to be fine. I’d leave a bouquet or two, have a laugh, lose interest, move on with life. Talk with Samantha. Address my issues. Nothing to worry about.

That belief stuck with me the entire trip to campus. Even when I spent half the flight thinking about how much more interesting it would be if Eren was with me. At least I had my mocha. And, once I got back to campus, a few days to myself. I mostly lived off ramen in my room, augmented by one or two meals out. On one memorable occasion, I went out to a popular breakfast joint in a ratty pair of sweatpants and an old hoody. One of the waiters offered to sit with me; I turned him down - nicely. Still, I’ve never been so well attended in a restaurant, before or since.

The place livened up considerably when Ymir got back. The first Thursday, we walked in the back common room entrance to Reuters, fresh off the back lawn (Ymir had wanted to sleep outside and watch the meteor shower, but had then realized it was 24 degrees outside). The week’s bouquet was a blue-and-white bush imitation, probably supposed to complement to weather. For the first time all week, there was no one visible, and if there’s one thing I learned from sneaking rugelach as a kid, it’s that if you waste time wondering where mom has gone there is a 110% chance she walks in while you’re elbow deep in the cookie jar.

“Ymir, cover me,” I said (for some reason) as I strode to the vase.

“What? Why?” she asked. I selected and extracted three sprays of lilac as fast as I could and tucked them surreptitiously under my arm. Her voice dropped to a hiss. “Are you just really not digging the wet cleat smell?”

“It’s not like that. It’s for… someone else,” I said, jerking my head towards the wing where I lived. About that time, someone came down the hall; I shifted my grip so that the flowers were behind me.

“Someone else, eh? Not Samantha?” she muttered as he walked by (I switched to hold them in front of me, just in case he turned around).

I gave her a look. “No. I’m not going to… crowd her.” I shoved down the gut-clenching response to her name, to the fact that she still hadn't so much as made eye contact with me in months.  


“Then who?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Dude, you can’t just not tell me. I’m gonna find out. Besides,” she said, grinning sideways, “you know you want to.”

Maybe I did, kind of. You know how crushes are: talking about them is (all the) fun. “Not Samantha. They’re actually for, uh…”

We’d reached my door. Ymir oh-so-subtly slid in front of it. I rolled my eyes. “Fine. They’re for Eren.”


	7. Coneflowers

There is a certain energy that permeates every college. Something about the high concentration of fresh-out-of-the-oven legal adults and much sparser distribution of nearly-cooled real adults who supervise with their unique mixture of fulfilled and stymied hope leads to a collection of rules and traditions that, while objectively nonsensical, have nonetheless been canonized as The Right Way To Go About Things. One of ours was Director’s Day, the date where, through some twisted logic long lost in the mists of time, the faculty had decided every final paper must be turned in. It was this frankly sadistic tradition that lead to the casual convention taking place in the rainbow lounge.

Roll call: me, stretched out on one of the three couches forming a horseshoe around the center of the horseshoe. Ymir and Historia on the couch opposite (well, Ymir was on the couch, Historia was coiled at her feet). Sasha curled up on the window bench. Marco with her legs stuck under the coffee table, bright red headphone wires twisted on said table. Armin had popped in recently; consequently unable to find a seat, she was splayed on the floor in front of the table. Eren and Mikasa were on the middle couch. As I watched, Eren stretched back, then grabbed her face and sighed. When she came back down, she gazed at her screen for a moment before flopping, clearly exhausted, on Mikasa’s shoulder. Mikasa stroked her hair absently, readings frozen on her monitor. Suddenly uninterested in procrastinating, I returned my attention to my essay - my human evolution final, currently titled [PLACEHOLDER, or WHY EVO PSYCH CAN KISS MY ASS]. I’d need to remember to change that.

So there we were, all diligently typing away. Sasha drained her cup of tea. There were at least four tea bags in the cup, which is less unusual than it sounds, given that it was 5:23 in the morning. The sleep deprivation didn’t feel so bad now. I’d worked alone in my room until midnight, 5 and a half hours before, when my first paper was due. This was my second, and it was done. Or rather, it wasn’t, but it had to be because now I had less than 12 hours to finish my final (20 page) paper. At least once 2:30 had slipped by, the sudden bouts of oppressive sleepiness had subsided to a dull sense of mental bees.

Oookay. Race and Public Policy. I had a topic. I had no citations, or title, or words, but I had a topic. Except I hated my topic. I wanted a different topic. That’s fine, I’d just write my new topic - it’s not like I was throwing out any research anyway. Slap down a title. Google. Google is my friend. Also the library website. Eren was now passed out on Mikasa’s shoulder. I stared at them for a second. Even in the hell that was Director’s Day they had both found positions I would have gladly stolen. Back to my essay. It was completely hopeless, of course; I had slept 8 of the last 48 hours, needed to rack up twelve more, and also write at nearly twice my usual rate of a page an hour. _It’s okay, Jean… you aced the midterm. You’ll ace the final. The TA loves you. If you flunk the essay, you’ll still get a…_

I checked the syllabus. The essay was worth…  40% of the class grade? _40%?_

A soft, high-pitched scream was floating in the air. It took me a moment to realize it was me.

“Dude, same.”

“What’s up, Jean?” Mikasa, her tone completely flat.

I buried my face in my arms, still screeching.

“…I think she’s broken.”

“I mean, me too. I haven’t written anything in like an hour.”

“So go to sleep, Sasha.”

“I can’t, man. This is for my advisor.”

I unburied my face. “I just realized… my last essay, the one I left for last? The one that’s 20 pages? It’s 40% of my final grade.”

Every face in the room winced. A general murmur of sympathy rose, but they were just as exhausted as I - frankly, no one had the emotional energy to care too much. Understandable. I would be the same in their shoes.

“It’s okay. It’s fine. The guideline is 20 pages, but if I aim for 17 he probably won’t care. I have a topic. I can do it.”

“That’s the spirit, dude. You got this,” said Sasha, trying to drink from her empty cup.

“…you want me to get you some more tea?”

She grimaced. “I mean, yeah, but if I have any more caffeine I’ll probably die. My heart rate is like 120 just sitting on this bench.”

I stared at her, expression blank. That wasn’t good. She should probably get some sleep. “Okay.”

I turned back to my essay. “Director’s Day is hell.”

Another murmur around the room, this time of agreement. Ymir spoke in consolation: “Well, at least there’s a Q Party tonight.”

“Yeah? Where?” asked Eren, suddenly only on the verge of sleep.

Ymir was balancing her pencil on her upper lip. Historia quietly elbowed her in the kneecap. Ymir twitched, the pencil dropped, and she sighed. “My room, probably, since no one else seems to want to take it on. I’ll be making the punch, too - rugby recipe.”

“ _Reiner’s_ punch recipe?” Armin asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh, no, Ymir, that stuff’ll knock you on your ass,” I said.

“Speak for yourself, lightweight. I drank four glasses at the last social and I felt fine.”

“Hey, watch who you’re calling lightweight, coat rack. I could drink you under the table.”

“Oh, that’s how it is? Well, there’s an easy way to settle that: drinking contest, you and me, tonight at the Q Party.”

Something told me this was a bad idea. Still, the bees said yes. “You’re on. One or two glasses of punch to start with, then we’ll count shots.”

“Deal. Hope you’ve got someone to carry you home.”

“You’re the one who’s gonna need a lift.”

“I just said it’s in my room, dumbass.”

“…I haven’t slept a full night in like five days.”

“Awesome! Now that that’s settled, let’s all shut up and work,” said Sasha, sounding about ready to strangle us with our headphones. We shut up.

The next twelve hours passed in a haze, more or less. We went to breakfast in shifts. Eren, Sasha, and I jumped the second the dining hall opened; Armin practically had to be carried to food. The air felt much colder than it had any right to, even in January. Somewhere in the back of my bee-stuffed brain, I realized that my body’s thermoregulation was shutting down in response to stress. I zipped my jacket, for once. And that was it for the next twelve hours. I wrote exactly twelve pages of my 20-page paper, at least three of which could be best described as delirious. Of the requested 30 sources, I had 20, but about half were just two-paragraph speculative news articles. It was, in short, utter shit, and I hated turning it in - mostly because I genuinely respected the professor, and he would be grading the papers (but not the midterms or finals), because sometimes God hates you and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. At least I remembered to retitle my Human Evolution paper something slightly more professional (Evolutionary Psychology: What is it Good For?, subtitled What Human Evolution Can - And Can’t - Tell Us About Our Minds).

The student council had put together an event on the lawn North of the campus center, where we’d set up camp. There was cider. Fresh doughnuts. Free blankets. The giveaways started at 5, on the Director’s Day deadline. It was supposed to give us something to look forward to, and I guess it did, because conversation slowly resumed as we walked. Granted, most of said conversation was complaining about the line, but still - it was better than the “ten more pages” mantra I’d been following for the last 24 hours.

“How did they get here so early? I bet half these people didn’t even have papers,” I grumbled. Ymir nodded in agreement. The students at the very front of the line had started to file past us, wrapped in dark blue fleece blankets and sipping their cider.

“I know, but it’s not like they’re gonna have us show a syllabus at the counter or something,” Eren said.

“Besides, the line’s not that bad,” added Armin. “We’ll be at the front in less than fifteen minutes.”

“Yeah, and it’s not like I can track time right now anyway,” I said. I thought I caught a hint of a smile on Mikasa’s face, but then, it could have just been the dark lines flicking across my sight.

“Dinner at Reuter’s after this?” Sasha asked, completely ignoring our (admittedly pointless) conversation.

“No, thank you. It’s like a mile to Reuters from here. Just eat in Carnegie like a normal person,” Eren said.

“I’ll go with you, Sasha,” I said pointedly, making eye contact with Eren. She snorted, but looked away. So Sasha, Ymir, and I returned to Reuters, while Eren, Marco, Armin, and Mikasa went back to Carnegie, all with identical plans to grab some food and then sleep until Ymir’s Q Party. Well, except for Ymir, obviously - someone had to set up, and it wasn’t going to be me. Not even when she asked me to help over dinner (I pointed out that I’d done all the set up last time, and I’d definitely help her next time, and who’s idea was it to have a q party after Director’s Day anyway? Especially when rugby already had a social planned?)

Thus freed, I staggered back to my room, utterly exhausted, and set my alarm for 9:45. Just before sleeping, though, I had a stroke of inspiration - it was Tuesday. The Reuters bouquet would be thrown away tonight. The common room would be unattended after Director’s Day. If I could sneak some of the flowers out now, I could carry them up to Carnegie, drop them off outside Armin and Eren’s room, and be back here in time for the Q Party. They’d never suspect me - after all, why would I walk all the way back to Reuters, then up to Carnegie, then back to Reuters again, when I could be sleeping? It would be as close as I’d ever come to actually having an alibi. It’d take five minutes to get the flowers, plop them in my water bottle, then sleep. I reset my alarm for 9:30, then struck out to loot the common room.

Three and a half hours later, it was raining. Arguably storming - flood warning, every step outdoors a brief shower, the whole nine yards. But Director’s Day was over, and I had a set of unidentified yet pleasantly sunny yellow flowers, so. There I was, making the walk from Reuters to Carnegie, packing a highly incriminating (yet, if I do say so myself, tasteful) cargo. I was also recovering from Dean’s Date with less resilience than I’d planned; I still felt like I’d been hit by a truck, but at least it was more of a little Mazda than a one-ton Ford. It was far earlier than a usual delivery, not even ten at night, and thus riskier as well, but I figured that I could come up with a cover if confronted.

I slipped into entry number 2 and down the narrow dorm staircase with the flowers held backhand. I passed a pair of boys coming up who didn’t seem to notice either my nervousness or the barely concealed flowers. I peeked around the corner at the foot of the stairs. No sign of life. Still, I had to transverse the hundred-plus feet to their door without either of them leaving. Who put so much space between entrances, anyway? They were clearly too far apart. It had to take a full minute to get to Eren’s door, not including the moment when some guy came out of the laundry room behind me and I jumped about a mile. Finally, I was there. I bent (slowly, carefully…) to put the flowers on the threshold. Then the door opened. From the inside.

It was Eren. Of course it was. She was standing there, above me, looking utterly perplexed.

I looked up at her. She looked down at me. I straightened, flowers in hand, offered them to her, and said, “These were outside your door.”

She stared at them for a moment, then (finally, ohmygodErenjusttakethem) accepted them. “They were here when you got here?”

“Yeah. They’re still wet, though - whoever it was probably left them really recently,” I said, face blank. “Anyway, is Armin here?”

“Armin? Why?” she asked, finally looking up from the bouquet.

“None of your business, but if you must know, we were gonna go to rugby social for a few minutes before the Q Party.”

She raised one eyebrow. I still haven’t learned how to do that. “I mean, yeah, that’s what she said, but she’s already gone.”

“…oh.”

“Yeah.”

I recovered as quickly as possible. “That bastard. Definitely time for me to be going, then.”

Eren was now looking exclusively at me, not the bouquet. I was now looking at Armin’s half of the room over Eren’s right shoulder. I turned away, back toward the exit stairs, and said, “See you later, Eren.”

I saw out of the corner of my eye as she tossed the flowers on her bed and swept out the door, heading in the opposite direction - towards the bathroom. “Later, looser.”

I was busy not looking back when I heard a tune echoing down the hall. Eren was playing something on her phone - probably one of those people who likes to listen to music in the shower, never mind the other people in he bathroom. Still, I slowed, just slightly, trying to make out the words: “Say something, I’m giving up on you…”

I froze halfway to the door. Then I strode the rest of the way to the exit and out into the rain.


	8. Geraniums and Primrose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter may be long, but the night was longer.

So the only question now was whether to actually go to the rugby thing or just go straight to Ymir’s. I headed towards Reuters; maybe there was still some helping to be done now that I’d had a little nap. It was, of course, still raining. By the time I got there, my hair was lank, my shoes were squishing, and I was generally soaked to the armpits.

“Oh, you decided to show up, did you? You’re early, the freeloaders won’t be here for another hour or so,” she said, trying vainly to pour one bottle into the punch cooler while shaking another.

I slipped a $5 bill into the collections jar next to the cooler. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry to leave you hanging, it’s just… there was some stuff. Do you need me to do anything?”

“Go to the hall bathroom and get, like, a ton of paper towels. As many as you can hold. Also maybe take one of the punch cups and fill it with tap water. Someone’s gonna spill something in the first 10 minutes, I can feel it.”

“Aye, captain,” I said, out the door as quickly as I’d come. Now that I was here, the bet was starting to loom a little. My earlier comments aside, Ymir wasn’t exactly a lightweight. Still, I was heavier (and more German) than she was - I’d be fine. If nothing else, I had the willpower.

When I returned, she was stirring in ice. I pinned the stack of paper towels under the cup on a windowsill behind the cooler’s desk. Ymir glanced up and said, “You look like a drowned rat. Did you walk up to Carnegie?” she cracked a crooked smile. “Is Eren’s new nickname ‘stuff’?”

“Maybe. Yes. Also I may or may not have gotten caught.”

“Oho. Eren or Armin?” she asked, then grabbed a red solo cup and filled it with about an inch of punch.

“…Eren,” I said as she sipped the punch, tilted her head, and offered it to me.

“Try that - I think maybe we need more vodka.”

I tried it. We did not need more vodka.

“Okay, look, I wasn’t gonna ask but if you’re not gonna cut to the chase - what’d she say?”

“Nothing. At least, nothing much. I told her I was there to walk Armin to rugby social, and that the flowers were there when I got there, and… I think she bought it.”

“Huh. She’s less observant than I thought - maybe you two are a good match.”

I failed to suppress a smile and so directed it into my cup. “Maybe.”

Ymir grimaced. “Stop making doe eyes at the punch; you’re gonna give me a toothache. Help me wire the speakers.”

So I did. We decided by mutual agreement not to start our little contest until someone else arrived to keep track - we’d just have them put a sharpie mark down on our wrists whenever we took another drink. Foolproof.

It even worked - Historia was the first one in the door, and thus got the dubious title Possessor of Sharpie. Ymir and I poured each other a shot, checked to make sure they were even, and drank. Historia put a tally on our wrists. Rinse, repeat. And again. And again. We were four down when a group of guests arrived and Ymir decided we should put our little contest on hold, after all, she had a duty as the host to at least pretend to have an ounce of self-control. I wasn’t complaining, honestly, if Sasha hadn’t walked in I would have called for a chaser break. The whole endeavor was making me remember just how much I hated vodka (there was a whole thing as a freshman involving the crew team, an unmarked glass, and a shot every five minutes… for an hour), so I slipped down the hall for a quick drink of water.

When I came back, Ymir met me in the doorway with a glass of punch in each hand. She thrust one at me and grinned. “C’mon, smart guy, you started it.”

“And I’m gonna finish it, too,” I said, taking the cup and drinking enough to punctuate the statement without giving away the burning in my stomach. While I was in the bathroom, a couple more people had arrived. Ymir’s room wasn’t all that large; she and her roommate had left their beds bunked just because there was no good way to separate them. It looked even smaller in the dark. We’d set up one of those rotating rainbow lights party stores sell as cheap ‘80s decor and had hooked a set of speakers to Ymir’s laptop. Of course, Ymir’s music was… just as unique as her personality, but it seemed to be working just fine for the crowd she’d attracted.

It was, in short, a party. Still in the quiet, awkward early stages. I wasn’t sure whether to be happy about that or not - the music wasn’t quite so deafening early on, but then when the music was quiet people actually expected you to talk. No-win scenario, really. I downed half my glass in resignation and looked for a quiet corner to stand in.

And that was it, really, for the first hour. Ymir bounced around her guests, laughing, smiling at pretty girls, occasionally fiddling with the music. I stood in the corner and drank until my drink was gone, then alerted Historia and went in for another. I was up to seven marks acquired in this way when Ymir came up behind me, leaned on my shoulder, and announced it was time for us to set up the stripper pole.

Ymir kinda had a thing for the pole, and judging by the roar that greeted it, she had judged its timing right. She’d first picked it up for a themed rugby thing, then realized that honestly there was no party that was not improved by the presence of a quick-set purple PVC stripper pole and started bringing it to basically every event brave enough to invite her, regardless of such petty considerations as “the type of event” or “the size of the room”. Two people made for much faster setup - especially considering the rapidly declining subtlety of Ymir’s fine motor skills. I watched her fumble with a screw bolt for a full minute before kneeling down to help. I also took the opportunity to point out that, “Dude, Ymir, I think you’re getting a little -“ and here instead of trying to think of a word I pretended to loose my balance, rocking in a wild circle.

“Pot, kettle,” she said with a disturbingly benign smile. I stared at her for a moment. The screw bolt still wasn’t in. I probably would have forgotten all about it if some helpful partygoer hadn’t poked it with a toe, drawing my eye to an unduly dizzying spin. Ignoring Ymir, I picked up the bolt and cautiously set it in its port. I tapped it in. Ymir tapped it harder. Then she stood up and declared the stripper pole open for business and herself its first customer.

I leaned back slowly and stood even slower. All the noise in the room was starting to run together, and I recalled that nap or no, I was still severely sleep deprived. I watched Ymir get busy with her pole, and unable to think of anything else to do, went back for another drink.

Right about then, as I returned to my corner with a fresh eighth tally and a new glass of punch and Ymir’s blouse became an impromptu party favor for some lucky soul, Eren and Armin slid in the door.

I decided to entirely ignore this development in favor of sipping more punch. Everything was easier if I just confined my concerns to my corner and my punch. Historia sidled up by my elbow, glasses in both hands. I ignored her. She ignored me. I thought this was odd, for a moment, before remembering that Historia hated talking to strangers even more than I did and had much more trouble avoiding doing so. She just looked nice, poor kid. She was ogling Ymir as she leapt forward onto the pole, gripped it with her thighs, leaned as far back as she could, and swung down in a slow circle. Couldn’t blame her, really.

Historia tugged on my shoulder. I leaned down low enough for her to whisper in my ear, “Why didn’t you ever date her?”

“ _Ymir?_ ”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Not in a million years. We’re like best friends, obviously, but like… no. It’s a mutual feeling of like… fondness? But platonic fondness. We’re just like, romantically incompatible. We did talk about it once - just a quick ‘yeah lol no’,” I told her.

She nodded in that exaggerated way people do when that’s their entire response. As we watched, someone tapped Ymir on the shoulder. Ymir bowed and slid away from the pole, clearing the stage for the next brave soul - a short, round boy who looked even more confident than Ymir. Freed from her compulsion, Ymir made her way toward Historia and I, took her cup back, downed it, and offered up her wrist. She was up to nine. I grimaced and finished my cup. Even with that mark, I was falling behind, and I made my way to the cooler. Ymir had me refill her glass, against my gripes. I was on my way back to her when I ran into Armin. I brushed against her shoulder, she turned, I almost slopped punch down her left side, and thus it was time to say hi.

“Jean! I missed you at rugby,” she said, smiling. Armin had such a good smile.

“Uh, yeah, I would’ve gone but Ymir needed some help - like, with setup,” I said, somewhat impressed with my own coherency.

“Yeah, I can see that. Great punch, by the way. Stronger than it tastes?” she added.

“Just like Reiner’s,” I said.

“Are you actually doing that drinking contest thing with Ymir?” she asked.

“Uh. No. Maybe,” I admitted.

I could see her expression harden, even under that stupid confusing rainbow ‘80s light. “How many are you on?”

Wordless, I offered my left hand, still holding Ymir’s drink. I may or may not have forgotten the exact number. She grabbed my wrist, took the drink, and turned my hand over, exposing Historia’s mess of tallies. Her eyebrows rose.

“Eight. In the last… two hours?”

“Yeah, well, I feel fine,” I said, holding eye contact. It was more of an effort than usual, but perfectly possible.

“Uh-huh,” she grunted. She dropped my wrist. “Just be careful, alright?”

“Sure, mom. Can I have Ymir’s drink back now?” She hesitated. “Dude, it really is for Ymir. I’ve got mine right here. If you don’t give it to me, I’ll just go back for another one.”

Armin took a sip. I swear she was hiding a smirk. “Thanks for the punch, Jean.”

“Bastard.”

Armin, suddenly deaf, turned toward the pole. Unwilling to fight her for the stupid drink, I went back to the punch cooler - which was empty. Of course it was. Stupid Armin probably knew that when she stole the cup. Nothing here but ice water and bitterness. I returned to Ymir and Historia, who had taken advantage of my absence to get comfortable on Ymir’s bed, in defeat. I plopped down on Historia’s other side and started drinking.

“Dude, where’s mine?” Ymir demanded, interrupting my punch quality time.

“Armin took it.”

Ymir gasped. “Armin. Shoulda known. You can’t trust the blondes,” she declared, before yelping in pain. Historia smiled benignly and tucked her elbow away from Ymir’s ribs.

“See what I mean?” she mouthed over Historia’s head. I snorted and returned to my punch. I barely noticed the feel of the punch now. My guts were just a mass of pleasant burning. Cup drained, I crushed it in hand and offered my wrist to Historia, who scrawled down a ninth mark.

“Well, time to get another one.”

I shook my head. “We’re out, Ymir. Punch’s gone. It’s a tie.”

“The punch is gone?”

“Yeah.”

“…well, you know what that means.”

“…it’s a tie?”

Ymir grinned. My guts clenched a bit. “Nah, dude. That means it’s time for shots.”

It’s not like I could say no. We shuffled around the pole and through the dancers until we reached the liquor bench. Ymir’s limbs swung awkwardly as she plunked two of the last clean shot glasses on the table. “You pick the first shot. We’ve got rum, vodka, and whiskey.”

“Um, not vodka. Let’s do whiskey.”

She poured the glasses. I clinked the glasses. I even drank the shot. There’s something odd that happens after you reach a certain point - the tenth shot goes down way, way easier than the second. Historia marked our wrists. Ymir picked the next shot - vodka, naturally. I called her a heinous exploitive bastard. She told me I needed to expand my vocabulary. We drank. Eleven drinks each. Ymir announced that the next shot needed to be rum, just to round it out. I decided that my only chance was to grit my teeth, drink, and hope she dropped first.

I succeeded, after a fashion. As Historia put the twelfth mark down, I heard a grinding noise, followed by several screams, then shouts. Laughter. It took a moment to realize what had happened: the purple PVC pole had come off the ceiling and toppled into the crowd. Fortunately the whole apparatus weighed about two pounds, but presumably whomever had been on it at the time didn’t.

“Well, shit,” Ymir concluded, and dove into the crowd. Historia followed. I found the nearest wall, leaned against it, and watched the ceiling spin.

Armin found me like that not too later. I was just standing there, looking up, breathing even and intentional, fighting off waves of nausea. I didn’t even see her until she tapped my elbow.

“Hey, Eren and I are going to get out of here and go to the row - dance for a while, you know. You coming?”

I stared at her for a second. There was some reason I should stay, something that still hadn’t been decided - a contest. Ymir. But looking up, she was dancing across the room and didn’t seem all that invested in whatever competition we were supposed to be having, so I decided I wasn’t either. “Sure. Yeah, let’s go,” I said, heading for the door. Actually, I headed for the opposite wall, realized that wasn’t the way out, and then headed for the door.

“I’ve still got to grab Eren,” she called after me. I waved noncommittally over my shoulder. Maybe I’d wait for her in the hall. I realized she’d said she was bringing Eren. I’d definitely wait for her in the hall. A few more deep breaths later, they came out, trailing an assortment of other partygoers heading for the row. We left together, speaking loosely, but a few moments later the pack had splintered as each group of friends slowed to the pace of their least mobile member. I determined early on that I wasn’t ours, and marched boldly into the night. I was clutching fence posts and trees as they became available, and climbing stairs with the rail as much as my feet, but by God I was moving.

Eren was, of course, moving just a step faster. I struggled after her, successfully keeping just off her heels. Armin was a few steps behind, huffing quietly. She may have been muttering under her breath, but if so, I certainly didn’t have the sensory acuity to keep up with what she was saying. I could feel the alcohol on my breath, but it felt good - like it was leaving, slowly but surely. The fresh air helped. Still, Eren was just a step ahead. As always. Bastard. Would it kill her to pay attention to something besides constantly being out in front? I found myself staring at her shoes, counting her steps. One, two three… four. There was an irregularity in the rhythm of her right leg. Maybe if I caught her foot just right…

One, two three… four, one, two three… four, one, two three… four, one, two three _thunk_.

I caught the heel of her left shoe. She staggered forward on her slow right leg, thoroughly off balance. I continued to stand on her shoe, then realized belatedly that she was actually falling, if slowly. Also that Armin had yelled in surprise. I flailed for something to grab, still standing on her shoe, and caught the back of her shirt. She hung there for a moment as I tried to figure out how to recover our balance. Oh yeah. Lean back.

So I did. I shifted my weight back and pulled up on Eren’s shirt. We didn’t move. In fact, we were tipping _forward_ , slowly but surely. I pulled harder. We tipped slower, but still we tipped. Finally, I snarled, “Are you going to help me save your stupid face or not, Eren?”

A pause as she considered, then, “Nah.”

“We’re going to fall, you -“ I said. I was cut off when Eren rolled her shoulders and turned her feet, shifting the balance enough to change our slow, graceful tip into a sudden and precipitous swing. Fortunately for her, she was less than a foot off the ground. I was not. Normally I would have caught myself, but “normally” my BAC is significantly below .15, so instead I made a rather intimate acquaintance with the paving stones. I groaned. “Bastard,” I said, organizing my limbs and lurching off the ground.

“ _I’m_ a bastard?” she said, rising with significantly more grace, “You tripped a cripple, you ass.”

“I did not.”

“Yes you did, Jean, that literally just happened.”

“Okay but I didn’t do it on purpose -“ or at least I hadn’t quite processed that she was hurt, though in retrospect limping people usually aren’t the picture of health - “and besides, it’s not like I didn’t make an effort to help you not fall. It’s your own fault we ended up on the ground.”

“Uh-huh. Right. Get up, you drunken lout - Armin’s waiting for us. Oh, and this time, you can go first.”

Hey. It worked. I got to go first. I didn’t realize until several steps later that this gave Eren uninhibited access to my own ankles. I glared at her suspiciously over my shoulder (then twisted to avoid a pole some genius had set into the concrete mere inches off the path).

“Nice pirouette,” Eren said, snorting. I lined back up with the path, but glanced back every couple steps until she finally said, “ _What?_ “

“I’m watching you.”

“Clearly.”

“No, I mean, _I’m watching you_.”

“What the hell, Jean?”

“Guys, where are we going again?” asked Armin.

“Where ever’s open,” said Eren.

“You’re going to trip me, aren’t you?” I said, eyes narrowed. It was the only possible explanation for Eren willingly letting me go first.

“Um. No.”

“Wha’d’you mean, no?”

“I don’t have to trip you, Jean. Besides, it’s more fun to watch you fall on your own.”

“Yeah, well. Always happy to entertain,” I muttered, returning to focusing on my steps. Any embarrassment I may or may not have felt was hiding safely under the flush of alcohol.

So we went to the first place we found that was open. Unfortunately, I ended up puking not quite in the trash, and got kicked out of said place. Armin happened to see me on my way out, snatched Eren under the elbow, dragged her after me, and then asked me a series of questions I had absolutely no answer to about where I was going, so I ended up going with them to the second place that was open. This lasted slightly longer; Eren and Armin danced while I found a relatively quiet place to sit and read. I even danced once or twice, in a big open circle with Eren, Armin, Ymir (who had resurfaced from god knows where), and a few others I knew from the center, but I wasn’t really in the mood for dancing. I felt less sick - or at least I thought I did. Then I realized I definitely still felt sick, and made a break for the bathroom.

On the bright side, I made it this time. Managed not to make a mess of two bathrooms in the same night. Rinsed my mouth out. Slipped back onto the dance floor. Realized that I really wasn’t in the mood. Armin asked if I needed someone to walk me home. No, I’d be fine. Left.

Once again, the fresh air felt good. The path home was mostly deserted, not a soul in sight, except - footsteps. I slowed. So did the footsteps. I sped up again. So did they. My stomach tightened in ways that had nothing to do with alcohol, and I took a side path into the central gardens - one that wouldn’t take me anywhere, one that there was no good reason to take. The steps followed.

When I was a kid, there was a family a few streets over that kept a pair of pitfall crosses. Not that there’s anything inherently scary about pitbulls, but there _is_ something inherently scary about being in middle school and being followed home by a snapping, snarling dog nearly as tall as your waist. The damn thing dogged me almost every day, from when I passed its owner’s house to when I reached my own door. I carried a pocketknife with me every day on my way home - the same one now clipped to the gore of my bra - just in case. I never had to use it, but I’d hold it white-knuckled as I made my way up the street. Fortunately, dogs are like most predators: they hate to attack their prey head on. They could get hurt, you see. So I turned around every time I heard a snap a bit too close to my heels, and walked backwards up the street. Not even tigers like to attack head on.

I turned around. The footsteps stopped. There, about 50 feet back, was a human figure. It was too dark to make out their features, but they were… shorter than I expected. And sporting a very conspicuous bob. “ _Armin?_ ”

“…uh, yeah.”

“What are you doing here? I told you, I’ll be fine.”

“I just wanted to make sure. You’re drunk.”

“I’m _fine_ , Armin. Go back to the house,” I said, and kept walking. The footsteps picked up again - but they weren’t turning around. She didn’t believe me, didn’t think I was capable of _walking_ on my own. Didn’t think I knew what I was doing. I spun on my heel. “Go back, Armin. I don’t need you to follow me home.”

“…it’d make me feel better if I did, though,” she said, still hanging back.

“Look, I’ll text you when I get back to my room, just stop following me, okay?”

“You promise?”

“Yes.”

“I’m serious, Jean, if I don’t hear from you I’m going to assume something happened.”

“I promise, Armin, just… don’t follow me.”

When I started walking again, the footsteps didn’t follow.

And that was it. I went back to my room. I drank a couple cups of water, to stave off the hangover. I took my contacts out. I brushed my teeth, even though I would have so preferred to just lay down and go to sleep. I filled my water bottle and left it by my bedside for the morning. I slipped out of my clothes, heedless as usual to the open curtain in my bedroom - honestly, no one wanted to creep on me. I flipped off the lights and lay down, half asleep already. Then, at the last possible moment, I remembered: Armin. If I didn’t text her, she was going to worry all night. I floundered my hand across my desk, looking for my phone. Found it, opened Armin’s thread, and began to type - /I got back okay. In bed. Later./ - and hit send. Or at least I tried to hit send; when I tapped the key I lost my hold on the phone and it fell the three feet to the floor. Cursing quietly - the phone, my bad coordination, the height of my bed, the excessively bouncy carpet - I slapped my hand across the floor, feeling for the phone, but wherever it was it was out of reach, and getting out of bed to look for it was frankly out of the question. Resigning myself to writing Armin a heartfelt apology in the morning, I flopped back on the mattress and went to sleep.

* * *

 

The next thing I knew, the lights were on and there was someone in my room. Utterly disoriented, I sat up, making a suitably surprised-yet-questioning noise. The blanket slid down my chest, and I realized belatedly that I should probably have held that up. Fortunately for everyone involved (let’s be honest, mostly him - I was too dead to care) the guy had turned around when I started moving. “Get dressed,” he said, standing stiffly in the doorway facing my living room.

“Why?” I asked, groggily picking my clothes off the floor.

“Do you need a moment?”

“Uh, dude, yeah. I was kinda asleep. Also what time is it?”

He ignored me, but I could hear him talking to someone in my living room. Good god, what was this? A fucking bust?

“How long ago was this?” he asked, businesslike.

“About three hours? Give or take,” said a familiar voice. A very familiar voice.

“ _Armin?_ ” I said, looking over the guy’s shoulder. It was definitely Armin.

“Are you ready to go, miss?” asked the man. P-safe. Public safety. I didn’t text Armin, and she called fucking /public safety/ on me?

“No, thanks. I still need pants if we’re going anywhere. Also I’m pretty clearly not in danger. Can I just go back to sleep?”

“I’m afraid not, miss. It’s policy that any student reported for intoxication has to be evaluated at the campus health center.”

“And they reported me?” I asked, pointing at Armin and - and Eren. What was Eren doing here? She was with Armin, obviously. That was all, probably. Armin asked her to come, and now she got to see me get booked by p-safe because I forgot to send a goddamn text message. Also, as my phone informed me, it was 4 in the morning.

“That’s right. How much have you had to drink tonight?”

“Less than they have,” I muttered. This was blatantly and objectively false.

The officer looked at Armin. She shook her head, confused.

“Can you give me an idea how much that might be?”

“Less than they did,” I said again, having decided that was all I was going to say on the matter.

“…alright, miss. Make sure you have your key card, and we’ll be on our way.”

I glared at Eren and Armin as he led me from the room. Eren glared right back. Armin at least had the decency to look sympathetic, but her face left no doubt that she felt she’d done the right thing.

So I left with p-safe. I had to ride in the back and everything. The seats were pleather, the floor hard plastic - likely for easy clean up if someone puked in the back seat. It smelled like this had happened fairly recently, and I met with the unhappy realization that while I was nowhere near as drunk as I had been, my stomach was not by any means stable.

“So how’s your night been?” I asked, lounging in the back seat. I was trying to project an air of nonchalance.

“Busy.”

“Oh, right, stupid question - it’s director’s day.”

“Yep.”

“So you have to pick up anyone reported for drunkenness?"

“That’s right.”

“Even when they’re as lucid as me?”

He didn’t reply to that one, though I think he may have given me a look in the rearview. By that time we were almost there, anyway, and I devoted my focus to not puking in his car while trying to convince him I was sober. We arrived at the clinic. He escorted me to the desk, where a very harried nurse took my ID. Then she asked my name. I tore my eyes from the four obviously smashed students lolling in the holding room to face her. “Jean Kirstein.”

“Class year?”

“2018.”

“Birthdate?”

“April 7, 1996.”

“Uh-huh. What’s 7 times 8?”

“…56.”

She looked up from my card, brow furrowed. “Stand on one foot, hands on your hips.”

I did. Then I turned it into a tree pose, just for kicks. The line in her brow deepened.  “Student ID number?”

“Ah, just a second, it’s… 9-6-0-7-2-1-0-2-5.”

She stared at me for a moment. I wondered if I’d gotten a number wrong. Then I wondered why that was even a question - most students had no idea what their number was; I only knew mine because my card had once mysteriously stopped working for meal swipes and I’d had to recite it every time I went to the dining hall. The nurse stood up. “Take a seat,” she said, gesturing toward a line of chairs in the hall. I took a seat. She came around the desk.

“So, uh, busy night, what with Director’s Day and all?”

She grunted, fishing something out of her pocket. “Blow,” she said, holding a breathalyzer to my mouth. I did.

“Keep going, keep going, good, more, more - okay,” she said.

“I never realized how much air it takes to work one of those things,” I commented. There was a red number flashing on the side of the mouthpiece: 0.07. I could have legally driven myself there - well, without the whole 'underage' bit. The nurse rounded on the p-safe officer.

“Where did you _find_ this girl?” she demanded.  


“Uh, well, her friends called on her - said she was non-responsive, so I opened up her door and -“

“So you _woke her up_?” said the nurse.

“Well, uh… yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

The nurse sighed and handed me my card. “You can go. Don’t drink anything for the rest of the night, yes, including water. This man -“ she pointed at the officer “- is going to give you a ride home.”

My stomach rolled. “Uh, thanks, but that’s fine - I can walk, it’s not that far -“

“Honey, it’s four in the morning.”

“Still, I like walking, and uh it’s… more direct…” The nurse stared. I wilted. “Okay.”

So he gave me a ride home. I didn’t try to make conversation, and neither did he, but I did thank him when we got back to my end of Reuters. He grunted. I tried not to look like I was in a rush to get out of sight as I hurried away, doubled over just behind the wall in front of my stairwell, and emptied what was left of my guts. I made my way upstairs, brushed my teeth (again), stripped, (again), and laid down to sleep. Then, on a whim, I picked up my phone, found the message I’d meant to give to Armin, and hit send.


	9. Dried Sedum (and a Face-Rock)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Valentine's Day.

On February 14th, I went through the campus garden on my way to the Lounge. As I walked over the last of the frosted cobblestones, I reached up and casually plucked a spray of blooms off one of the bushes arching over the entrance to the garden. They were completely dry, dead ages ago. Perfect.

The real Valentine’s bouquet had been delivered this morning - 8:30 am, before my first class. I’d even put in (stolen) some red. A lovely bundle of carnations and a single white rose left at their door. 8:30 was too early for either of them to be moving (or at least, that’s what I’d guessed). Armin said that they formed a feedback loop of bad habits: every night, one would ask the other of they were ready for bed. “No, I’ve still got work.” An hour later, the same exchange in the other direction. Eventually, it was 5 in the morning, and neither of them would get up before noon. I was completely fine with this, so long as it meant neither of them were going to open the door on me with a handful of engorged plant gonads.

So overall the deliveries were going well. What was going less well was the overall trajectory of my feelings. I’d been leaving flowers for five weeks, and I wasn’t getting any better. Samantha and I had been avoiding each other completely for nearly all that time, though I’d sent her a text asking if she wanted to talk. Every time I saw Eren I felt the temperature in my face rise a degree or two, just by her entering a room. Frankly it was out of hand; the one thing that was going according to plan was the fact that I didn’t feel much of an urge to confess. I walked in to the center with the dried flowers in my pocket.

Second semester classes had started, and the people scattered all over the center were mostly caught up in their work. There was Armin, sitting on the floor, two notebooks and a textbook spread out in front of her. Mikasa was holding her hair and glaring at something on her screen. Ymir was actually using the table, drawing diagrams of something complicated and hexagonal, while Sasha sat on the window bench with her headphones on, humming and typing. Looking around gave me an unpleasant reminder of Director’s Day, though the atmosphere was… much more cheerful.

Taken together, it didn’t seem like this was a very chatty scene, so I headed for my usual spot under the window and pulled out my computer, then thought better of it and dug up the book I was supposed to read for my next class. Yes, book. It was for a class that assigned a book every single week, all of them mandatory, plus a couple pages of response to prove you’d read it. Only unlike every single previous class that had given me an assignment like that, the professor really didn’t _just_ want you to prove you’d read it, they wanted you to prove you’d thought about it. I’d fucked up my first two responses because the professor said ‘think’ and I internally changed that to ‘repeat’ without even thinking about it, because that’s what most of my previous professors had meant. Smith did not mean repeat. Smith meant think. And that meant that I actually should have read the book earlier than the day of. Bastard.

As usual, my seat was empty. Well, it wasn’t really my seat, but no one else ever sat there in the winter - the window bank was single-pane, for some ungodly reason, so it was always about ten degrees colder than the rest of the room. I turned to my place in the book and grimaced. Smith’s class was on the history of prisons, and it had quickly secured a place as extremely time consuming, very informative, and incredibly depressing. This week’s title was “Worse Than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice”. I hated it. I needed to read it. But that didn’t mean I had to do it right then. I looked around the room for something (anything) I could do instead.

I was in luck: some generous soul had left a stack of origami paper on the table. “Hey, does anyone know if that’s, you know, _for_ something?” I asked the room.

Ymir shrugged. Armin and Sasha didn’t show any sign of having heard. Mikasa growled at her computer, then said, “Mina left it here earlier. Said it was up for grabs. She wanted to see what we’d make, but then she took off.”

I resisted the urge to ask Mikasa how long she’d been in the lounge and thanked her instead. I knew how to make exactly one thing with origami: a cube. But on the bright side, I didn’t even need a pattern. I pulled out six sheets and started folding.

In half, dimple, half the other way, crease, bring in the corners. I’d learned to do this in high school and it just happened to stick. I cringed a bit at the memory of my first cube. It was a Christmas present, or, well, it contained a Christmas present. I’d had a crush on a boy in the year above me. It didn’t work out - he was too pretty for me, and _way_ too awkward - but I knew he liked puzzles, so ‘wrapping’ in an apparently sealed, symmetrical cube had appealed. That was more the gift than its contents (a cheap flash drive with some old Star Trek episodes; I’d also known he was a nerd).

_You know who else likes puzzles?_ whispered my brain. I paused. The little sprig of flowers I’d grabbed in the garden was just small enough to fit in the finished cube.

I set aside the first two walls and picked up a third piece of paper. I should put something else in the box - if I gave it to her with just the flowers, she’d probably think it was empty. Would it be funny to have her leave it unopened for months? Absolutely. Did I have the patience for that? Absolutely not. I’d have to add something heavy. Like, you know, a rock. The third leg was done. I had a nice unremarkable little gray stone in my bag. I hummed softly as I finished the fourth leg. After I’d done all six, I put the box together except for the last fold, and asked if anyone in the room happened to be carrying a marker.

“Hang on a second,” said Armin as she rummaged through her messenger bag. “Will this work?” she asked, tossing me a broad-ended brown calligraphy pen.

“Um, yeah, that’ll be fine. Why’re you carrying this around?” I said, examining the end of the marker.

Armin shrugged. “Let me see it when you’re done.”

I grunted and ran my fingers over the little stone. Should I draw a flower? A heart? Something else so saccharine it could only be taken as a sardonic token of loathing? I cracked a smile. Definitely something else. I uncapped Armin’s pen and drew the rough outline of a face. The flat line of of a mouth. Sharp nose. Expressive eyes, currently expressing exasperation. Choppy, thick hair. The whole thing was elongated horizontally, more the idea of a face than a direct representation, but the idea was going in a very clear direction - or at least, I thought so.

“Whad’u’you think?“ I asked, tossing Armin the stone. Her eyes widened and her expression transformed from a dull stare to an open-mouthed grin.

“Oh my god. Mikasa, look,” she said, tossing it to Mikasa. I thought it was going to hit her computer for a moment, before she snatched it out of the air.

Her smile wasn’t open-mouthed or bubbly, but it was there. She chuckled softly before handing me the rock. I slipped it into the cube, under the flowers, and closed it up. Hopefully Eren wouldn’t just rip it open right off the bat.

Unfortunately, the completion of the cube was also my cue to return for my reading. I’d just have to give Eren the box when she showed up. Should I try to put it in her bag when she wasn’t looking? Just toss her the box when she walked in and brazen it out? Eventually, I decided to stick with my usual strategy: plan basically nothing and just flail at issues as they arose.

Eren walked in almost an hour later, as I was struggling through the second chapter. The reading had deadened my reflexes; by the time I realized I should throw the box she was already sitting down and at that point it would have just been strange. I instead dedicated myself to waiting for an opening to slip it into her bag. She did not seem keen to provide one, extracting her laptop from her pack and then making no move to leave it unattended. I fiddled with my pack of page markers as I read and waited for her to move.

Eventually, Mikasa leaned back, holding her face and groaning. Armin pulled her headphones down around her neck and sighed. “So… anyone have any exciting plans for today?” she said, looking around. It was fairly clear she was looking for a distraction. It was also clear that there were several people more than willing to oblige her. Unfortunately, no one seemed to have much to offer.

“Me? Are you kidding? Never,” said Ymir, grinning sideways.

Armin turned toward Mikasa, waiting for an answer. “Don’t you think you’d know by now?” she grumbled from between her fingers.

“No,” said Eren and I together. “Actually, I take that back,” said Eren alone “I have a hot date with the water cooler.” She got up, dusted some invisible dirt from her pants, and headed for the door - the water cooler was in the next room. Her bag would be out of sight for precious moments. Carpe diem.

I got up and covered the distance to Eren’s bag in a few quick steps. I wrenched open the zipper and stuffed the box inside while Mikasa, Ymir, and Armin looked on. Armin made as though to say something only to be shushed by Mikasa. Ymir just grinned. I tried to keep my attention entirely on the bag for the brief moments I was working; knowing Eren might return before I rezipped lead me to prioritize speed over stealth. Besides, it’s hard to be stealthy when you’re literally crouched over someone’s bag. Just as I was closing the zipper again, Armin coughed a little too conspicuously and I leapt back. Unfortunately, this meant I almost crashed directly into a rack of safe sex pamphlets, which I made a great show of interest in as Eren returned from the water cooler.

Unfortunately, my sudden and abiding interest in the same pamphlets that had stood in the corner for more than a year combined with the carefully neutral expressions of every face in the room was too conspicuous for even Eren to ignore. She paused in the doorway, looking from face to face with an expression of great suspicion. Finally, she said, “What?”

“Hmm?” answered Armin, looking up from her problem set wide-eyed and innocent.

Eren glared at her, but didn’t speak. Armin flushed a little and looked back at her papers. I made an abortive attempt to get back to my seat just in time for Eren to round her gaze on me. “What’d you do?”

“Me?”

“No, Mikasa, who hasn’t moved an inch since I left. Yes, you.”

“…nothing,” I said, in a tone that made it perfectly clear that I had done something. There was absolutely no point in pretending I _hadn’t_ done something, so why not? Maybe there was also a bit of reverse psychology going around, but whatever it was, I grinned through the obvious lie.

Eren scowled back, completely unmoved. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” I repeated, and brushed by her back to my seat. She looked after me for a moment, then one by one to Ymir, Mikasa, and Armin, all of whom were united in a stalwart effort to avoid her eye.

“Fine, don’t tell me,” she muttered, throwing herself down on the couch by her bag. “I’ll find out eventually.”

“Oh yes, you will.”

“ _What?_ “

“Hmm? Did you say something?” I said, letting a bit of a sing-song into my voice. Eren ground her teeth at me for a moment before opening her bag, presumably to get out her books, only to find there was a brightly colored cube in the way.

She took it out with a slow, smooth motion, like someone trying to draw out a line of silly putty as far as possible before it breaks. “What the hell is this?”

I ignored her, genuinely trying to process my reading (and maybe cackling a little on the inside). She glared at me for a moment longer, then glared at the box instead. She turned it over, ran her fingers over the seams, and finally shook it. I kept the wince I felt at the image of the little stone portrait reducing the dried flowers to dust internal.

“It’s fairly heavy, so you definitely put something in there,” she said, more to the box than me. Then she looked up, eyes narrowed. “Is it going to stab me when I get it open? Or shoot something? Or, like, explode?”

I didn’t say anything back, but did deign to give her a dirty look. “Okay, fine, just checking. Does it even have a lid, or am I just supposed to rip it up?”

I looked scandalized, placed a hand over my sternum, then sighed, shook my head, and returned to my reading. I couldn’t bring myself to actually tell her, but I hoped I’d made my meaning clear.

She grumbled to herself as she worked, getting progressively louder as I tried to keep the grin off my face in the opposite corner. Armin, who was facing away from Eren, didn’t bother to suppress her smirk. Ymir, of course, has never suppressed a smirk in her life. Unfortunately, Eren was both better at puzzles and more even-headed than she may at first appear, and realized in short order both that there was no functional difference between any of the sections and that this meant that any of them could conceivably be the “lid”. From there, it was a simple matter for her to choose a tab, tug with more force than she’d at first used (but not enough to rip the paper), and decompose the box. She sat still for a moment, staring into the box while I watched her out of the corner of my eye. Finally, she picked up the rock and held it up to her eye. “A rock.”

“And some flowers!” I said, happy to break my silence now that Eren had opened the box (and was at a loss regarding its contents).

“ _Dead_ flowers.”

“Hey, it’s February. What’d’you want, fresh roses?”

“I mean, I’m not gonna say no to that.”

I crossed my arms and, no shame, straight-up pouted. “Well, that’s gratitude, considering I’m your only Valentine.”

“What the hell makes you say that?” she asked, left eyebrow worryingly close to her hairline.

“Um. Well, I guess I assumed. You know, based on your charming personality.”

“My ‘charming personality’,” she repeated, turning the rock slowly in hand. “…which you captured in this stunning true-to-life portrait, I see.”

“I think it looks just like you,” offered Mikasa, back to her work. Eren scowled at her, then turned back to me.

“Besides, you’re completely wrong. Someone dropped a bouquet off outside our door this morning.”

“Oh, wow. Isn’t this like the fourth one? Such dedication,” I drawled. It was the third.

“Yeah, look,” she said, holding up her phone. Squinting at it from across the room, I could just make out the splashes of color I’d so carefully arranged around that single point of white.

“Huh. They even themed it. Any new suspects?” I asked casually.

“Actually, yes,” said Armin, sill staring at her work. “There’s this guy that keeps inviting me to events at his frat, and I think it could be him? Or at least, that seems more likely than anything else.”

“Yeah, and let’s be real, they’re for Armin. I mean, between the two of us, who would you leave flowers for?” said Eren. I hesitated. It was clearly a rhetorical question, and besides, I couldn’t exactly jump out and say ‘you, obviously, you’re only the prettiest girl on this campus’. This called for a new tactic.

“Yeah, now that you mention it, that makes sense. A frat boy admirer, huh?”

“He’s not that bad. I’m not interested, but describing him purely as a frat boy does sell him short,” said Armin, still engrossed in her work.

I looked back at my computer, trying for all the world to ask questions as though I didn’t really care about - or already know - the answers. “Still, leaving flowers outside your door? Bit creepy, yeah? Not quite stalker, but there’s… potential.”

Armin groaned. “I was going to say surprisingly sensitive, but you have as usual hit the nail on the head. If it’s an actual effort to show romantic interest, it is a little weird.”

“They’re leaving flowers outside your door. What else could they be trying to show?” asked Ymir from her nest.

“I don’t know, but I have to hope that’s not it. I’m taken and Eren’s not looking, so either way… if that’s the intent, it’s going to end poorly for the giver,” said Armin. I stared at my reading.

“It doesn’t have to be romantic,” added Eren. “Hell, the first time they showed up we thought it was our hall mates telling us to take out the trash, right, Armin?”

Armin nodded from the floor. “Wait, what?” I said, looking from one to the other.

Eren stretched, arms back over her head, and said, “Yeah, we’d put our trash out before collection day because we didn’t want it stinking up our room, so we let it stink up the hall instead. The first flowers we got smelled pretty strong, and… yeah. Thought it was the neighbors telling us to clean up our shit.”

I was experiencing a momentary but serious doubt regarding just how necessary all my complicated scheduling was if these two bozos were really going to just… interpret lilacs as passive aggressive neighbors. I shrugged it off. Even if it wasn’t necessary, it was fun - almost as much fun as listening to Armin muse over the various boys who were definitely not leaving her flowers.

“There were some other suspects early on, too, but I’m really starting to think it’s him. I had an idea, too - they’ve all got the same type of ribbon holding them together. Different colors, but same stuff. I’m going to tie one of them around his door handle to let him know I know, and hopefully that’ll lead him to talk about it. And if it’s not him, then it’ll be kinda weird, but nothing’ll come of it,” Armin said.

“That’s a good idea. You’re gonna let him down gently if it is him, I assume?” I said, scrolling absently.

She sighed. “I’m gonna try, but I’ve already told him I’m not interested. He’s cool and all, but if it is him, I wish he’d take the hint.”

“Look, if you want, I can make sure I’m there when you talk to him. For moral support,” said Eren.

“Same,” echoed Mikasa and Ymir from their side of the room. “Men,” Ymir continued, “I have never even heard of one of them taking a hint. And I’ve heard a lot.”

Armin shrugged, frowning at her homework. “I might take you up on that. We’ll see. I’m not even sure it’s him yet.”

“Fair,” I said. I stood and shoved my laptop into my bag. “I’ve got class coming up. See you guys later.”

“Hey, Jean,” said Eren. I paused on my way to the door, internally timing how long would be too long and make me look too invested in what Eren had to say. “Thanks for the rock.”

I flashed her a sideways smile as I slid out the door. “You’re welcome. You can make it a pet rock. It can listen to you talk without wanting to run away screaming.” I was out the door before she could respond, on my way to look like a moron who obviously hadn’t finished the reading.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the sudden change in update schedule; I'm hoping to give my partner a bit more time to finish their section - as it doesn't seem to have caused an uproar, I may stick with the weekly updates, but feel free to weigh in!


	10. Daffodils and Nanjing Cherries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sasha is late and Jean meets herself.

“Hey, you can knit, right?”

It was lunchtime on a school day. The Reuters dining hall was practically empty except for me, Sasha, and Marco sitting in a corner round table, food almost finished and afternoon class approaching. The semester was back in swing, which meant that movie nights were out and meeting for meals was in. The ground was still frozen solid, but the snow had been effectively removed from the paths around campus… which unfortunately meant that I no longer had a real reason to avoid 8:30 bio lectures, and instead had to deal with the inevitable fatigue the rest of the day.

“Um, no?” I said, shaking myself awake again.

“I can,” offered Marco. “It’s a family pastime.”

“By ‘family’ do you mean ‘grandma’?” I grumbled to the remains of my sandwich.

Marco’s eyebrows dug in over her suddenly-less-round eyes. “Not just grandma. It’s a three-generation thing. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with grandmas - at least, according to those of us with any shot at becoming one.”

“Oh, low blow,” I said, miming pulling a dagger from my chest.

“Does that mean you can make patches?” Sasha said, sticking to what was probably her original question.

Marco suddenly looked less abrasive than sheepish. “Well… depends on the kind of patch. Knitting isn’t that great at fine details - at least, my knitting isn’t - and a knitted patch would probably just look weird on most fabrics anyway.”

Sasha groaned in frustration. “I want to do this thing for one of my art assignments, but I want to do it in some sort of thread or textile and I don’t know how I’m gonna get it right.”

“I could try to pull something together,” said Marco. She didn’t seem terribly enthusiastic.

“What did you want to do?” I asked slowly. Sasha looked up, clearly hopeful. “I can’t knit, but I do know how to embroider, which is usually more delicate than knitting and looks good on normal fabric… if that’s what you’re going for…” I trailed off.

“Just a second,” she said, and pulled a napkin out of the table’s holder and a pencil from her bag. In a moment, she had a workable sketch of a skeletal design. It was pretty, I suppose, but more important it was full of thin, straight-to-gently-curved lines - exactly the kind one would embroider. I wasn’t altogether pleased with this.

“Yeah, you could embroider that. There’s probably a bunch of tutorials online -“

“I don’t think that would work,” Sasha cut me off. She looked very serious about the whole thing. “I always have trouble learning crafts from the internet. It’s much better when someone demonstrates, you know?”

I had a good idea where this conversation was going, and I was not pleased. “Sash, this is going to take hours, and I’ve got a full schedule, I can’t just drop my work to sew your thing -“

“I don’t want you to do it for me!” she barked. “I just want you to show me how, and then I can do it myself. I learn fast as long as it’s in front of me.”

“Well…”

“Aw, c’mon Jean,” said Marco. “Embroidery’s easy to learn. It’ll take like an hour tops.”

“Why don’t you teach her then?” I muttered.

“Can’t. Quiz Wednesday. Gotta study.”

“Fine,” I said. “I can show you how to embroider.”

“Great!” said Sasha, beaming as she stood. She slung her backpack over her shoulders. “There’s a costume sewing thing tomorrow afternoon that’d be ideal. Just bring the embroidery stuff and your homework - once I’ve got going you can do your work and just stick around in case I get stuck.”

“Will Samantha be there?” I asked, poking my omelette, voice carefully detached.

“Samantha? No? She came to like 3 meetings at the beginning of the year, but I don’t think she’s going to the con. Anyway, it’s in Gaines, I’ll email you the details.” With that she bounded off to her next lesson, leaving Marco and I with matching expressions of mixed affection and resignation.

Sure enough, tomorrow afternoon saw me dragging my sad sack to Gaines shlepping backpack full of thread, needles, and spare fabric. The details email had come as promised, albeit at 5 o clock that morning. Turns out the sewing thing was an anime club thing - one of the seniors had a sewing machine, and she’d offered it up to anyone looking to work on their cosplay for a con in a few weeks. Overall, very not my thing. I’d never been to a single one of their events, had no cosplay, and had to mentally stop myself from saying ‘costume’ whenever it came up. Still, Sasha had asked… and maybe being friends with just Sasha, rugby people, and assorted rainbow regulars wasn’t the healthiest thing. So I walked the short way to Gaines through the snow, wondering idly if Sasha was even out of class yet.

I opened the door to Gaines, stomped a few times, headed up the stairs, realized I was in the wrong entry, retreated outside, came in a different door, and up a different set of stairs until I found the right room. The door was propped with a shoe, but I knocked anyway before entering. After all, I was reasonably sure I’d never met any of these people in my life - walking into their living room was awkward, shoe or no.

“Come in!” said someone down the hall. I slid in and, when a quick glance revealed no one in the hallway, slid my shoes off and left them in the entry. Like all rooms in Gaines, there was a small entry with a waist-high wall between the hall and kitchen. The two double bedrooms were behind the kitchen, while the entry lead to an open living and dining room. It was a pretty sweet setup, provided you didn’t mind taking the time to cook, which was why it was populated almost exclusively by seniors. I headed to the living room and saw a short woman with a pale blonde bob kneeling over a perfectly smooth sheet of brown fabric. On closer inspection, it was obvious she was pinning it. Her pincushion was a small stuffed cat.

“…hi,” I said, unsure of what else to do.

“Mmph,” she said as she sat up. She turned, pulled the pins from her mouth, and said. “Hi. Are you here for the cosplay sewing session?”

“I suppose I am,” I said.

“Cool. Come in, make yourself comfortable. No one else is here yet, but that’s okay - it just means you get to use the machine first, no?” she said. She had the barest hint of an accent, something vaguely eastern European. “What did you bring to sew?”

“Um, I’m actually not sewing, really…”

“Okay. What’s your cosplay?”

“Well, I’m not cosplaying, per se, either,” I said. Her expression turned quizzical; I continued before she had a chance to ask me just what I _was_ doing in her room. “I’m meeting a friend who’s doing a cosplay. She asked me to teach her how to embroider, and wanted to do it here so we could stay focused.”

“Ah,” said the girl. Her expression was still decidedly neutral, but she seemed mollified. “Okay then. My name’s Rico. Who are you supposed to meet?”

“Sasha? Sasha Brouse,” I said, hoping they’d met. Sasha hadn’t mentioned Rico that I could remember, but they were in the club together, so…

“Ah, yes, Sasha. Good to know that she is coming. She always… brightens the room, no?” said Rico, finally cracking a small smile. I grinned back and made my way toward a round wicker chair set back against one of the huge windows that covered Gaines. “And you said you can embroider? That’s a useful skill, you know,” Rico continued, bending back down over her work.

“I guess,” I said. “It’s a good thing to know, but I don’t know how utilitarian it really is. Like, sure, I could hand-embroider a pattern… or I could just buy a patch, or have it done with a machine. It costs more to do it like that, but it takes literal hours to get anything done. If you only save like 15 dollars in five hours of work, does it really save you anything?”

Rico shrugged over her pattern. “That is true, but at least you have the option. If I want embroidery, I _have_ to pay for it - and some patches are quite expensive.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, pulling my materials from my little bag. Neutral backing fabric. Some colors that might match Sasha’s design idea. I put a couple needles through the backing for safekeeping, then set the whole collection on the ground next to my chair. Sasha, obviously, was no where in sight - just me and Rico. She was still hunched down, focused, but watching her felt awkward. Looking aimlessly around her room felt awkward, too, and I in my infinite wisdom hadn’t brought my school work. I could help Rico, maybe, possibly; I wasn’t sure how much Junior High home ec would help with sewing clothing. Instead, I sighed, picked out a length of red thread, pulled the hem of my shirt away from my stomach, and started to sew.

I was just beginning to sink into the design when Rico’s door opened again and two people came in. I pulled my stitch tight and looked up to see two women, one short (ish) and ash blonde and the other dark-haired and tall, scraping the snow off their boots in Rico’s foyer. As they pulled their boots off the blonde woman called “Rico! Are you here?”

“Mmph,” answered Rico, again, but she sat up and waved as they moved into the living room.

“Hey! How’s it going? The jacket looks really good,” said the blonde woman, head cocked, as she sized up Rico’s project.

Rico spat out her pins and said “Yes, well, I’m making progress, I suppose. You’re work is something similar, yes, Hitch?”

“Uh-huh. Let me show you what I have so far,” she said, dropping a shoulder bag with “maybe I want to look cheap” printed over a vintage housewife in a big hat next to Rico’s project. While she looked through the bag, Rico turned to the dark-haired woman.

“How about you, Marlowe? Are you doing something this year?”

She shook her head. “Nah, not this year, but Hitch asked me to come with her, so-“ (here Hitch interjected with a universally ignored “I did not!”). Marlowe pulled her hands from her pockets and revealed a tangled mass of yarn with just the barest suggestion of form. “-I brought my knitting. And a pair of pants that needs a patch, if the sewing machine is free.”

“Good, good. Take a seat on the couch. I’ll take a look at what Hitch has here, and then hopefully I can set you up on the machine and get that patch out of the way before the room fills up,” said Rico. I realized I had yet to see her smile, or indeed do much with her face beyond gazing impassively over her glasses.

“Thanks, Rico,” said Marlowe, turning toward the couch, which was incidentally set just next to the window and also me. It was easy to pinpoint the exact moment when she noticed me. It was the one where she took half a step back, said “Hi,” and then giggled nervously.

“Hi,” I said. The blonde woman had looked up at the sound of an unfamiliar voice; Rico was already immersed in her (and Hitch’s) work.

“Woah, hey, didn’t see you back there. Who are you, anyway? Friend of Rico’s?”

“Sasha, actually,” I said coolly. “I’m supposed to be helping her with some embroidery.” _If she ever shows up._

“Oh, hand stuff. That’s super cool. Useless, though,” she remarked, before returning her attention to Rico. I had said basically the same thing to Rico minutes before. That didn’t mean I was okay with her coming after me like that.

“At least I don’t have to pay like $50 for someone else to do a worse job,” I sniped from my chair.

Hitch looked up at me like she was genuinely surprised I was talking. “Oh, sorry, I don’t mean it like that. It’s just, you know, machines, yeah? Besides, if you’re paying $50 a piece you’re definitely looking in the wrong places,” she said smoothly, then spoke again to Rico before I could reply. Instead, I silently unthreaded my needle and started pulling the stitches out of my shirt. I paused, checked the time, and decided that if Sasha didn’t either text me or get her ass to Gaines in the next 15 minutes she’d have to track me down some other time.

“Did you just do that while you were waiting?” asked Marlowe, who had apparently settled down on the couch like two feet away while I was brooding. She was looking with what appeared to be genuine interest at the pattern that now stretched halfway around the hem of my shirt and up towards my sternum.

“Yeah.” I continued pulling stitches. It occurred to me that once they were out, I’d have to come up with something else to do. I kept pulling.

“Wow,” said Marlowe. I looked at her seriously for the first time. She was leaning over a bit, but clearly tying to stay out of my personal space. I guess I looked a bit prickly. “That’s neat. Are you freehanding it?”

“Yeah,” I said, picking a bit slower. Useless or not, her interest was gratifying.

“Don’t mind Hitch,” the Marlowe said, leaning a bit closer conspiratorially. “She’s just a bit… blunt. I bet she’d actually like to learn herself when she’s not working on something else.”

Hitch herself did not appear to have heard her. I grunted. “She’s kind of right, actually. It takes hours for me to do the same thing a machine could, but then, she could buy that jacket she’s working on, too, so we’re both idiots - similar breeds, too.”

Marlowe smiled to herself as she pulled out her knitting. “Me, too, I guess, but it beats spending another weekend on nothing but work.”

“Mm.” I was almost done pulling the pattern, despite my sluggishness. I was wrapping the retrieved thread around my hand and seriously considering packing it in when Sasha, at long last, put in her grand entrance.

“Sorry I’m late!” she said before she’d even finished opening the door. “Ran into Marco - got sidetracked -“

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. This always happened with Sasha - I’d get pissed off about something, prepare to snarl about it, and then actually see her and any comments would evaporate. She was just so… obviously benevolent. Like you couldn’t imagine her intentionally causing problems for anyone, so attacking her just felt gross. “Do you have any materials to work with, or..?”

“I have needles,” she said, dropping her bag and tugging it open. “And some cloth in the color I want. I’ve got normal thread. Will that work?”

“Theoretically, yes, but it’ll probably look shitty. Weak. Here, look through my stuff, see if you can find a good color.”

So it went. Sasha learned fast, but she had a tendency to pull too hard, causing the fabric to bunch along her stitches. This frustrated her, so… she pulled harder. I joked that she could work it into the design, and if anyone asked she did it on purpose. She glared at the wrinkles, then replied “You know, that’s not a bad idea, but I want it to be good, too…” entirely sincerely. I didn’t point out the joke.

And that’s how it went. Marlowe knitted, occasionally glancing over at Sasha and I. Rico and Hitch worked on their jackets. Other people came and went - Rico’s roommate, who proceeded directly from the door to her room after a brief greeting, and poked her head out again an hour later to ask if it was okay to cook. A guy with a fistful of fuzzy white cloth but no sewing experience who wanted to make a hat. A dressmaker finishing some details. They were all unfailingly polite, slightly strange, and every time one of them came in, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I just couldn’t shake the lurking anxiety that one of them would be Samantha, even with Sasha’s casual assurance. At that point, it was more frustrating than anything else. Still, I guess it was a good thing to do. _Meet people. Have some Social Crafting Time,_ I thought, before _Too bad it’s cutting into my Readings Due Tomorrow time._

“I think you’ve got it,” I said as Sasha tied off her third complete line. The recent stitches lay flat on smooth cloth and her lines were straighter than either of us had the slightest chance of being. “That’s basically all there is to it, that and practice. If you’ve got to make a sharp corner, treat it like a disconnect, like between those lines there, just smaller. And remember, the stitch is backwards, so the thread won’t always start where it looks like it should.” I stood, stretched, and started to pack my things.

“Wait a minute,” said Sasha. “What about your threads and shit?”

“Keep ‘em,” I said, waving one hand from behind my pack. “You live like 200 feet away, I’m not that worried. It was nice to meet you all, but unfortunately, I have an essay for tomorrow, and I must away.”

I exited to sympathetic groans and assurances that I was welcome back any time, club member or not. I waved over my shoulder and thanked Rico for the offer. Must be my sparkling personality.


	11. A White Lily, Calla Lily, Pink Daisy, and Wax Flamingo Lily Walk into the Castro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haircuts abound, but not a hairdresser to be found.

“Jean, what are you doing?”

“Cutting a flower, what’s it look like?”

“…how about you don’t.”

I sidled over to the peace lilies growing under an old wooden telephone pole in San Francisco. The sky was clear, the sun was bright, and everything gave off a distinct whiff of art deco. Historia and I had wandered away from the rest of the team, choosing to explore the city for our last afternoon on the West Coast. We’d already been to the Castro twice (both Historia and Nifa were now sporting rather stylish above-the-ears haircuts; Marco had been thoroughly traumatized after accidentally entering the adult section of the store complete with a 6-foot wooden phallus; Ymir had dropped her souvenir budget on a set of rainbow suspenders after being repeatedly reassured they were not “too much”, and I had acquired yet another item to hide from my parents in the form of the largest rainbow flag they sold), and so had embarked on a quest to get to the highest point in the city the trolleys would go. Only the trolleys weren’t running in this part of town at the moment. This left us with that most maligned of options, Going for a Walk. In the end, Historia and I were the only ones who felt that what a trip involving three games and seven practice sessions in a week really needed was more exercise. Ymir had originally been slated to come, too, but she got one look at the haze of dust hanging in the air and elected to remain within easy reach of an air conditioner. Honestly, I doubted Historia really wanted to come either, but Reiner had approached us while we were sitting in the hostel and tried to pressgang Historia into helping her find a new pair of shoes, and Bob’s your uncle, we were going on a walk. “It’s fine, there’s no one else on the sidewalk,” I said, hopping the knee-high whitewashed fence.

“I know, but still.”

My little silver knife made quick work of the lily’s stalk. “Don’t worry so much; I’m just gonna take one. It’s not like I’m stealing everything in sight.”

Historia chewed her lip as I jumped back over the fence. As we walked down the dusty, cracked sidewalk in silence, I sucked on the cut. I read somewhere it makes them last longer, keeping them moist until you can get to water. Makes sense. Beside me, Historia was watching me out of the corner of her eye. I pretended not to see her, focusing on wiggling the stalk as much as possible. Finally, she spoke. “Is that for Eren?”

I popped my lips. “Um. Yeah. We’re going back tomorrow, and all, I thought I should start putting something together.”

We started on the downside of the hill. Say what you will about San Fran, they really do have those hills, and they push the roads sideways and make it impossible to get any where without at least 40% solid cardio. “Do you really think she’ll want a grave flower?”

“A what?” I scoffed, flicking the lily like an orally fixated cowboy with a fresh piece of straw.

“A _grave flower_ , Jean. I’m pretty sure you just robbed a memorial.

Even in the heat, I froze. “I did not.”

“I’m pretty sure you did.”

“That was not a memorial! There was no, like, plaque, or cross, or anything.”

“They’re calla lilies, Jean. No one just _plants_ calla lilies in the middle of a sidewalk for no reason, they’re a funeral flower.”

“…well, how was I supposed to know that? You could have said something.”

“I _did_ say something! You said it was no big deal!”

“I didn’t know it was a memorial - you know what, I still don’t think it was. Cities plant flowers all the time.”

“It looked like a memorial to me. Probably for a car crash.”

“It was not. Those things always have plaques,” I said. Then, “Anyway, don’t you think we should be focusing on trying to find the hostel? The bus leaves for the airport in less than an hour.” And I still had to pack the flowers I’d gathered, plus the flower-shaped candle I’d bought with my lunch change from that sketchy peddler by the wharf. Hey, a bargain’s a bargain, and there was only a small chance of tar smoke.

Historia agreed, if reluctantly. We even managed to get back with more than fifteen minutes to spare. There was Ymir, slouched on the lounge chairs, right where we left her and ready as always with a friendly greeting.

“Why on earth did you get her a calla lily? That’s a death flower right there.”

“It’s pretty, okay? And why is everyone but me suddenly minoring in funerary floral arrangements?” I said, swiping my pass card in front of the stairwell door - less chance of running into Armin on the stairs. I caught a glimpse of Ymir smirking as I left the lobby, lily held in a surreptitious backhand. I had ten minutes to wrap up the flowers I’d gathered, i.e. the calla lily, plus a regular white lily and a pink daisy _I_ thought was charming, which probably meant it stood for murderous hate or something. I wrapped the base of the stems in a damp washcloth, then dumped out my game water bottle and stowed the whole mess inside. Would I have any water on the five-hour flight? No. Would Eren’s flowers arrive unscathed? Yes. I tossed my bag on my bunk and unzipped it, shuffling clothes and books as I tried to find space for the bottle I usually carried in my backpack.

“Hey Jean, are you ready to go?” said Armin, peering in from the doorway.

“Huh? Oh, uh, yeah. Is the bus here?” I said casually, shoving the bottle inside my game shorts as nonchalantly as possible without looking at my hands. Then I saw it. Between me and Armin, pinched in the bedframe, where it wouldn’t get hurt: the little flamingo lily-shaped candle. If Armin saw it, she didn’t say a word about it, just, “Not quite, but Hanji wants us downstairs in five for a headcount. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t lost on your walk.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” I said, rolling off the bunk with as much flailing as possible in an attempt to hold Armin’s attention. “Just gotta finish getting my stuff from the bathroom; I think I forgot my shampoo.” I strode to the room bathroom, carefully not looking around the room as I did so.

When I came out of the bathroom, Armin was gone. I rolled the little wax lily in the pajamas I’d brought on the trip, laid it out on top of my mineralogy textbook so it wouldn’t get bent, zipped my bag, and went to wait for the bus.

Two airports, matching bus rides, one flight, and one awkward conversation with TSA involving agricultural regulations on the transport of viable flora across state lines, we were back on campus. Two whirlwind class days later, I was in the bathroom adjacent to my door with a pair of fabric scissors, a buzzer, and Ymir.

“Did you do the drop?” she asked casually as I divided my hair into three sections - either side and the middle of the back. She was gazing at herself in the mirror, shifting from side to side, gathering combs of hair, stretching them out, and letting them drop. During practice in San Fran, there had been a brief conversation revolving around the possibility of a purple mohawk. I was not trying to talk her out of it.

“Yep. Used the wire in the candle stem to prop them over the door handle, impossible to miss ‘em,” I said. I picked up the fabric scissors and took a deep breath.

“Wait a minute,” Ymir said suddenly. She caught my eye in the mirror. “Should you maybe text Eren? She might want to witness you.”

I paused. “You think so?” I said, still holding the scissors.

“Yeah, sure - who wouldn’t want to watch you make bad choices?”

“Stuff it, Ymir,” I muttered. Then I pulled my phone out and tapped Armin’s text contact. _Yo, Ymir and I are gonna cut our hair. Wanna watch?_

“Are you texting her?”

“No, I’m texting Armin. We are teammates, after all, and we hung out a bit in San Fran. Besides, it appeals to her curiosity for disasters.”

Ymir huffed softly. “So you think the mohawk is a good plan?”

“Ymir. A mohawk is _always_ a good plan.”

Sadly, she did not seem convinced. “Well, is she coming?”

“No answer. C’mon, let’s get started on yours,” I said, redirecting the fabric scissors. Her hair wasn’t as long as mine, just past her shoulders, and she was only going down to jaw-length. Her cut would be a cinch, I thought.

I was still trying to think that during my fifth attempt at leveling the back of her hair when Annie walked in. I paused, mouth full of bobby pins, tufts of hair everywhere, and those three stupid ponytails still sprouting out of my skull.

Annie, of course, did not appear to notice any of this. “I was going to take shower. Are you guys gonna be a while?” she asked, fluffy purple towel thrown over her blue-bathrobed shoulder.

While I tried to shuffle the pins enough to answer, Ymir said, “Um, yeah. Probably an hour or so at least.”

Annie hung in the doorway for a moment, then shrugged and stepped into the glass shower stall. When she hung her towel over the door, it obscured everything above her knees. Shortly afterward the bathrobe hung itself on the hook outside and steam began to rise over the door.

“Huh. So that’s the secret,” Ymir mused softly as I combed her hair out one more time.

A few tense minutes later, Ymir’s ends were even, she was holding the scissors, and Armin entered the bathroom. I turned to greet her. “Look what the cat dragged in. Glad you could make it - I’ve been standing here with these dumb hair ties in for like half an hour.”

She had a lovely smile; it when it reached her eyes the pale blue looked soft instead of disquieting. She smiled now, first at me, then at Ymir, before answering. “Yeah, I wanted to come sooner, but I was working on a project, and then after that I decided to drag my roommate down and _she_ had to finish _her_ thing… and then the walk from Carnegie…”

“Eh, don’t worry about it, it’s not like I’m getting anything done today anyway. Besides - wait, which roommate?”

The old, heavy, red bathroom door opened. Eren walked in, holding a white lily, pink daisy, wax flamingo lily, and a Calla lily. Armin said, “I’ve only got the one.”

“You would not believe how hard it is to find this place,” Eren huffed, tossing her stupid magic hat over one of the paper towel dispensers. “Like, I know you live here and all, but jeez. Third floor, but you can only get there with two out of the six third floor staircases - and who came up with the numbering for this hall? Anyway,” she continued without waiting for an answer, “we got here. And I brought the latest delivery; I figured you guys might have some insight. It’s right in line with Jean’s usual interests - Useless but Somehow Relevant.”

“You say while literally asking me to decipher something that has you stumped.”

Eren rolled her eyes. “So what’ve you got?”

“…nothing. I don’t know anything about flowers, okay?”

She snorted. “Figures. Well, at least it looks like you really are gonna chop your hair off.”

I snatched the scissors from Ymir and raised them to the right ponytail, just above my ear. “Imagine that,” I said, and sliced clean through. The hair dropped beside my shoe. There was a brief pause, while Ymir, Eren, and Armin all watched in silence, expressions wide-eyed and identical. I focused on not focusing on them, and chopped the left side just as decisively. This meant that when Annie got out of the shower that moment, there was only one ponytail left. She stood in the shower door for a second, then said, “Hi, Eren.”

“Um. Hi,” Eren said blankly, and I wondered if she’d even noticed there was someone in the shower.

Annie gazed at him for a second, then turned to me and said, “You’re gonna cut the back one, right?”

“Of course,” I said, trying hard to look casual instead of defensive. I really had been planning to, but something in Annie’s eye always made me feel outclassed.

“Good,” she said, and strolled between Eren and Armin and out the door.

“You know Annie?” I asked as the door swung closed behind her, mostly because the silent stares were becoming a little uncomfortable.

“Uh, yeah. We’re on the team -“ she hesitated while I cut off the last ponytail “ - together. Tae Kwon Do. She lives here?”

“No, she walked over from Carnigie barefoot in her bathrobe; she always bathes here due to her undying affection for showers with full-length glass doors in shared bathrooms.” Ymir snorted, Armin chuckled, and Eren opened her mouth to retort. I cut her off with, “Anyway, does she beat your ass? You just about climbed a stall door when she said hi.”

“She does not,” Eren said, while her ears turned red.

“Ac-“ Armin said, but Eren continued, apparently without noticing her abortive attempt to speak.

“Anyway, you better do something about your haircut. It hurts to look at you - even more than usual.”

“Hey, smartass, why don’t you figure out your stalker before worrying about my hair?” I said.

“Well, to start with, we’re pretty sure it’s Armin’s stalker, not mine.”

I blinked once, hard, and caught Ymir’s eye. “Why don’t you let me do the front, and then you can just match it in the back?”

Ymir shrugged. “Whatever you say; it’s not like I’ve got a hairdresser’s license. D’you think you should do the buzzer bit now?”

I stared into the mirror, licked my lips, picked up the buzzer, gazed at that for a moment, and finally sighed. “Yeah, I guess. Don’t want to misjudge the top.” I met my own eyes in the mirror and flicked the buzzer to on. I raised it and carved away strip of hair from just below my right ear to about an inch above, then steadily forward until I reached my temple. As I switched hands for the left side, I said, “So, what do you mean, ‘Armin’s stalker’? Did he leave a note or something?” Good. Carefully neutral, innocuous question making incorrect supposition. She won’t suspect a thing.

Armin shook her head, and Eren said, “No, but honestly, it’s probably Armin. She goes out more, knows more people - especially guys - and honestly… just look at us. We put together a list of suspects, and she’s got about seven to my two.”

Ymir folded her arms. “It could be Mikasa, too, for both of you.”

“No, it’s not her. We asked, she said no, and frankly she’s a terrible liar,” Armin said.

“Well,” said Ymir, face stony, arms still crossed, “It could be a threat.”

The perfectly straight line I was carving towards the crown of my head suddenly veered towards the back. I was aware enough not to round on her, but I tried to catch her eye in the mirror while she stoically avoided me. Armin seemed taken aback. “What?”

“Yeah, what?” I said.

“Calla lilies,” Ymir said, still avoiding my eyes. She pointed at the pale flower in Eren’s hand like an accusation. “They’re almost exclusively a burial flower. Regular white lilies have other uses, but they’re popular at funerals, too.”

“I doubt they put that much thought into it,” I said, tone carefully neutral, attempting to create layers despite not having any idea how to create layers and finding the experience unusually frustrating.

Eren shook her head slowly. “No, it makes sense,” she said, lifting the wax flamingo lily out of the bundle. “It took us a while to notice - Armin almost stuck it in the vase - but this one is actually a candle. Why would someone give us a candle? They’re banned in the dorms. Maybe it was just a novelty, but then we got to thinking… what if we hadn’t noticed and they called fire safety? We’d have been fined and added to the list.”

Ymir nodded wisely. “Could be. I’d watch out if I were you… but you know, it could be ignorance too. Maybe the flower guy is just inept.”

_Ymir, you shameless fucking traitor,_ I snarled internally, _You probably think this is hysterical_. 

At the same time, part of my brain slipped in with, _To be fair, it is funny. You’d do the same to her_. 

_Shut it_.

I clipped my new bangs, fuming silently, while Armin and Eren stared at my cross-continental flowers with something resembling apprehension.

“Maybe he’s just passive aggressive in general?” Eren mused. “A couple bouquets have included daffodils, too, and according to Google daffodils can stand for narcissism.”

_Just keep quiet._ “Or it could mean there’s a bunch of daffodils growing around campus. Maybe he just has limited options,” I said, waving the buzzer noncommittally. Suddenly very eager to change the subject (before Ymir could once again convince them I was completely psychotic), I added, “Ymir, could you trim the back for me?”

“Dude, I know I said I would, but are you like 105% sure? I’ve never cut anyone’s hair before.”

“You just finished your own, didn’t you? C’mon, it’ll be fine - and if it’s not, I won’t beat you up too bad. The beauty of it is, it grows back.”

“Ooookay,” she said, taking the buzzer from my hand. I glanced at Armin, then Eren, in the mirror. _Say something, quick, before they start talking about those stupid lilies again._ “So, what was this so-very-important project?”

Eren raised one eyebrow. “It’s a midterm assignment for my last anthropology prereque? I need to do a good job on it, though - I want to ask the professor to be my advisor, so I need to impress her.”

“Oh. Good thing you’re putting in the extra effort, then.”

Eren’s eyes narrowed. I gazed blandly back. Ymir added a whistled tune to her clipping routine. While Eren was trying to decide whether it was worth jumping down (not, sadly, on) my throat, Armin interjected. “Don’t you have work to do as well, Jean?”

I made a noncommittal noise. Armin cocked her head and put her hand on her hip. I groaned. “Fine, so I’m technically supposed to be working on a geo lab. It’s not that bad, though - basic physical oceanography, I’ve only done it a million times.”

“Are you sure? Isn’t that for your major?”

“Yeah, but like I said -“

“Wait, you’re a geo major?”

“Um. Yes?” Eren’s eyes were boring into mine in the mirror. I nearly recoiled, then pushed back instead. Like that thing in movies where two characters shoot eye beams at each other at the same time, or that scene in Harry Potter where the wands connect? Like that, only with pure competitive bile. “Is that a problem?”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a tiny department with a metric ton of cash per student and I’ve already got preliminary recruitment emails flying?”

Eren’s lip didn’t twitch this time - she full on sneered. My stomach tightened, and to my horror, I could see my color rising in the mirror. “Of course you’re in it for the cash.”

“Yeah, I am. What else am I supposed to be in it for? Rainbows and intercultural comparison studies?”

“Well, common human decency would be a good place to start. Maybe, I don’t know, some consideration of the effect of your actions on literally anyone else.”

I spun toward Eren. “Don’t you dare judge me, you - ow!“ at this point my devastating comeback cut off in an undignified yelp as a mysterious yank manifested on the back of my head. I rolled my eyes towards the mirror and got a very clear view of Ymir, standing calmly behind me with a fistful of what was left of my hair.

“Maybe don’t move. If you want to look like you’ve got mange, there are easier ways that don’t also risk me taking part of your ear off,” she said, the image of serenity. I stopped. She clipped once, twice more, then let me go. “I think I’m done. Take a look.”

She’d blended the front and back of my hair seamlessly; for all she’d never cut hair before, she’d done a fine job. Of course, my pattern wasn’t the hardest to match - undercut down to 1/2 inch (buzzed, but opaque; I hated the look of bare scalp), long enough on the top to play to my face, rough enough to stay away from the medieval monk look. “Huh. It looks good, no?” I said, turning back to Eren and Armin.

“Yeah, actually. It looks pretty darn okay,” Armin said.

Eren said nothing, but a very disconcerting grin was spreading oh-so-slowly across her face.

“What?”

Nothing. More creepy smile.

“Eren, what?”

“Oh my god.”

“Spit it out.”

“You look like that dude from Sasha’s movie. Killian.”

I wheeled back to the mirror, frantically running my hands through my hair. “Oh Jesus. No I don’t, Eren.”

“You so totally do.”

“I do not!” I did. Entirely.

Eren wasn’t even trying to hide her smile. She stood there in that run down dorm bathroom with that stupid glass shower door, grinning, eyes sparkling, white lilies suspended in her left hand. “Don’t worry, Jean. It grows back.”


	12. Nasturtiums and Borage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: plot ahead.

“Wait, what? Say that one more time,” I said. The rainbow lounge was all but deserted, just Eren and I, sitting in opposite corners, ‘working’ quietly. She’d said _something_ to me, but I couldn’t have heard right, so I turned down my music and lowered the lid of my laptop. Eren scowled from the bench across the room.

“I said, do you want to be my roommate next year?”

I Could Not have heard that right. And yet, she had definitely said the same thing twice. My heart was rapidly morphing into a small, burning knot in the center of my chest. I shouldn’t say yes, but how could I say no? I didn’t actually say either of those things. What I actually said was “Why?”

She gave me a look over her tablet. Not sure what I expected. I clarified, “I mean, why me? You and Armin have been together for the last two years; I thought you would just sign up together again.”

“Believe me, I’d rather do that, but Armin wants to try out a single next year. Thinks it might help her sleep and study habits - she says I tend to distract her.” The look on my face must have made it very clear I thought Armin might be right, because the next thing she said was, “Which, okay, we may or may not avoid signing up for morning classes because neither of us have gotten up before noon since freshman fall. Or gone to bed before four, for that matter. But the point is, I can’t live with Armin, and I need a new roommate.”

The knot in my chest was a little looser, but something still wasn’t adding up. “So you’re asking… me? Why not Mikasa? Or, you know, someone you like as a person?”

A dash of confusion mixed with the annoyance written all over her face. “Well, it’s not _just_ you. I want to live in one of those nice 4-man rooms on upper campus, so I actually need three people. I asked Sasha if she knew anyone, and she already hooked me up with another pair, but they’ve been together the last two years too and want to stay roommates… which means we still need a fourth person. So I thought, hey, you live in a single; no one’s going to miss you…”

Okay. So that was it. Pure practicality; not an affectionate card in the deck.

“Besides,” she continued, “I don’t entirely loathe you, so I figured you’d be a good place to start.”

I stared at her, brain whirring as I tried to come up with the right way to deal with the situation. Stall for time.

“Who’re the other two?” I asked. _Say yes - I can’t - She’s asking - It’s creepy -_

“I don’t think you’d know them,” she said. “Apparently Sash met them through anime club. Marlowe and Hitch?”

“Believe it or not, I actually _do_ know them,” I answered. I still couldn’t answer the real question, though, so the silence dragged on until Eren spoke again.

“Yeah? Where from? I thought you weren’t really in that crowd.”

“I’m not.” _What do I even do here?_ “Sasha was having an art crisis and she asked me to teach her how to embroider. She took me to this anime costuming thing, and those two were there. Actually, they showed up before Sasha.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” said Eren. “So, you know them. Great.”

“I don’t _know_ them, I’ve  _met_ them.”

“Whatever, Webster. Wanna be roommates?”

“Aren’t you supposed to buy me dinner first?” I said, mouth twisting into a wry smile. For the record, I wasn’t just being coy - it was something of a tradition for prospective roommates who didn’t know each other very well to get a meal together first, just to make sure no one was going to be decapitated before the end of the coming year. I’m not sure how effective it is, given how many people I knew with roommate drama, but probably better than nothing. I have no defense for the phrasing, given that no one was actually buying anyone dinner (because we were all on the same overpriced-but-nourishing-probably meal plan).

“Yeah, I guess I am. We were thinking of having dinner at seven on Thursday; that should be late enough for you to get back from practice. And if it turns out we hate each other, we’ll still have a couple days to figure something else out.”

_She planned around your practice. She learned your practice schedule._

_She learned_ Armin’s _practice schedule you fucking stalker._

_ Okay but still - _

“That sounds fine,” I said. “I guess I’ll plan for Thursday.”

“Ymir, what am I going to do?”

“Um. About what, exactly?”

“Eren!”

“Did she catch you, or is this just the normal strain of panic?”

“Of course she didn’t catch me, why does everyone assume I’m going to get caught? Don’t answer that. And no, it’s not normal - she asked me to room with her next year!”

Silence from the other end of the line. Then, “Well, that’s awkward.”

“That’s a fucking understatement!”

“So, are you going to leave flowers outside your own door next year or what?”

“Ymir, I’m serious. I have to tell her, don’t I? But it sounds so creepy! Like, what, ‘yeah, I’ve been low-key leaving you flowers every week for six months and also I’m in love with you, but you should totally room with me anyways despite the fact that I’m apparently a fucking stalker.’ Jesus, that’s gonna go down real well.”

“You don’t have to tell her.”

“But if I don’t tell him and then I move in with her, it’s even worse! God, Ymir, this wasn’t supposed to - it wasn’t - I didn’t - it was supposed to be a nonissue! I started doing this in the first place because I wanted a way to express myself that didn’t involve getting, you know, involved! I was supposed to get over it!” I said as forcefully as possible without letting the whole hall know about my personal mishaps. I floundered with the lock while Ymir kept the issue grounded.

“Well, you obviously didn’t. So now what?”

 

* * *

 

 

Ymir, Marco, and I were walking back to Reuters after practice that Thursday, when I ‘remembered’ that I was actually meant to head to Carnegie. I turned away from their continuing conversation and noticed Armin trailing about 50 yards behind us. “Hey, guys? I just remembered - I’ve gotta get dinner with the prospective roommates today. Catch you later.”

“Later,” said Ymir, supremely disinterested. She waved over her shoulder without looking back as she hung the turn towards Reuters.

“Bye! Good luck,” a much more animated Marco said, following her across the street.

I stood in the sidewalk as a considerable chunk of the team filed past. A few ‘See you Tuesday”’s later, Armin caught up. I turned without a word to walk with her back towards campus. She didn’t say anything either, at first - I’d noticed that Armin tended to talk much less than the rest of the team, and when I was with her, the inclination toward silence seemed to rub off. So we walked to the campus center, most of the mile back to Carnegie, without a word. Finally, Armin said, “So, dinner with Eren. What’re your plans there?”

“It’s not ‘dinner with Eren’,” I said. “It’s dinner with Hitch, Marlowe, and Eren, my prospective roommates.”

“Yeah, that’s kinda what I meant,” she answered as we rounded the corner. Most of my immediate friends already knew about my situation with Eren, but Armin was still out of the loop. This was mostly because she was Eren’s current roommate, frankly better friends with Eren than she was with me, and also because one of the more interesting threads of this whole convoluted web was the assumption that the flowers were for her. If she knew what was going on, she’d probably be amused, but she would also know that bouquets were meant for Eren - and from there it was a very narrow list of suspects. But this wasn’t about that. Probably.

“Now that you mention it, I guess I should ask you a couple questions. For example, did you really make a joint decision to avoid any and all morning classes for over a year?”

She sighed. “Okay, well, it wasn’t really a decision so much as a realization that morning attendance was not feasible and therefore signups would be futile.”

I raised my eyebrows at her as we looped around the center, past the JCCC. She rubbed the back of her head, then said, “So I suppose the functional answer is yes.”

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” I said. Then, without waiting for an answer (because honestly making her answer that would just be rude) I continued, “So that’s gonna be fun. Fortunately, I don’t think I’m physically capable of staying up that late on a regular basis, and my 9 am’s are mandatory. Hell, maybe I can get Eren to go to bed earlier. Set a good example. All that.”

“Mm-hmm,” Armin hummed in a tone that made it very clear she though that about as likely as my bringing Eren to Jesus.

“It’s not _impossible_ ,” I said. “It just requires consistent effort. Like training a puppy.”

Armin snorted. “Anyway, yeah, Eren’s the worst; you guys will have lots of fun together.”

She didn’t sound bitter, but something in her word choice was begging for investigation. “So… why aren’t you sticking together? Eren said you still get along just fine…”

“We do. We get along great, but we’re mutually destructive roommates,” Armin said simply. “I enjoy seeing Eren every day, but our living together is beginning to have negative repercussions on our academics, and neither of us want that in the long term. Aside from that, next year I won’t be eligible to eat in Carnegie any more, upper level engineering courses are usually on the East side of campus, and I’d prefer somewhere closer to my meals and classes. Also, from a purely personal perspective, I would like to try living alone at least once before I leave campus.”

Well, that was succinct and objective. Very Armin all around.

“Well, that’s that then, I guess.” Another pause. We were getting close to Carnegie now. “Any idea why she asked me?”

Armin looked at me, brow furrowed, then said, “Well, maybe because you’re friends?”

“Are we? Doesn’t she have way better friends? Sasha, for example? And what about Mikasa?”

Armin snorted. “Eren and Mikasa lived in the same room for a decade; they’re pretty much done with that. I mean, they love each other dearly - obviously - but they’re past the attached at the hip phase. Besides, Mikasa’s got her own friends she enjoys living with already. Sasha’s also lined up for her first single, since Hannah’s joining up with a quad. But really, it’s not ‘why not them’ it’s just ‘why you’, and frankly I think you’re an okay choice.” I gave her a questioning glance. She continued, “I mean, not the _best_ choice, obviously. But an okay choice. You won’t let her go to bed at 4 am every single day, and that’s something.”

I nodded. We crossed the final courtyard towards the dining hall. Armin hesitated, then said “I’ll go in the other door so we don’t have to awkwardly split up inside when you get to their table.”

“If you say so. See you later, Armin.”

“Later. And, just so you know, it’s a friendly dinner, not a job interview,” Armin said. I scowled after her as she struck off towards the other end of the building, waving cheerily over her shoulder. Then I took a deep breath and stepped into the dining hall.

Unfortunately, it was slightly harder than anticipated to track down the group. Of course they’d decided to eat at the peak of the peak hour (to accommodate my schedule, but never mind that), and they were just four people in a sea of hundreds. Fortunately, Eren has a very loud laugh.

“Hi,” I announced, slinging my bag under the remaining chair and my self on top of it. I placed my food and glass somewhat more gently on the table, across from Hitch, and took a drink. You never think of water as being delectable, but after practice, dining hall tap feels like nectar and ambrosia.

“Good of you to show up,” said Eren, next to me, across from Marlowe. “I was starting to think you’d gotten hit by a car on your way up. Or maybe murdered by the crew team.”

“That almost happened once,” I said seriously, between bites of chicken breast. “Ymir and I tried to use their bathroom after practice. Did not end well. Like, they didn’t actually do anything, because I think it’s technically an open building, but they kept asking us why we were there. Wouldn’t let us out of their sight; we ended up being followed around by two very burly individuals until we finally found it and left.”

“You’d think they’d just tell you where it is,” said Hitch, clearly trying to enable conversation, “So you would’t have to stumble around looking for it and maybe find their stash of cocaine or stolen bikes or something.”

“Right?” I said, now devoting myself to my ravioli. I was eating at a frankly unhealthy pace, but everyone else was already halfway done with their food, so I didn’t feel terribly judged. At least, I didn’t until I glanced up for some water and noticed Hitch staring. Then I felt judged, but only in a vindictive, contrary way.

“I mean, I’m sure they would,” said Marlowe, “If they were thinking rationally and not just viewing you as an infringement on their god-given club house.”

Eren snorted. “Granted to them by divine right, and also several million dollars of direct alumni donations that can’t be used for anything related to actual teaching at this school, because those alumni had such a fine time on the crew team.”

“God, money, same thing, really,” said Marlowe. I ate more ravioli. Eren grunted in agreement.

Hitch, however, chuckled. “You two aren’t seeing the big picture here. You’re too busy being self-righteous to consider that that stupid boathouse is actually a major plus for all of us.”

“Yeah?” Eren said, glaring. Marlowe also stared at Hitch as Eren continued, “And how is that?”

“Because, smart guy, the boathouse was built by donations, but all the crew alumni donations don’t go to the boathouse. Just for example, let’s say filthy rich rowers donate, I don’t know, four million a year. The boathouse costs two million, one time, plus maintenance; the program spends another million a year on staff and new equipment. ‘But Hitch,’ you think, ‘That’s only three million - where’d the other million go?’ The answer, my irreproachable friends, is the rest of the school. It pays for a professor or two, and some aides, and a few grad scholarships, and now you can almost afford to have a French department - because let’s face it, there’s no way the French majors are paying for that.”

I sucked down the last of my ravioli as Eren and Marlowe scowled at her. Finally, Marlowe said, “You know, that’s great and all, Hitch, but it doesn’t mean the crew team as a whole is a positive. Paying for French or not, most of the rowers I know are just personally irresponsible, and I don’t think you should be able to pay the school to ignore bad behavior - no matter where the money goes.”

“That’s right,” said Eren, nodding to Marlowe. “Everyone knows the rowers steal bikes to get down to the boathouse, and most of them never come back, but no one will do anything about it because ‘oh no we wouldn’t want to offend them’; they might donate less.”

“We don’t _know_ that,” I said. Eren and Marlowe both rounded on me; I raised my hands and added hastily, “We don’t. For all that _everyone knows_ the rowers steal bikes, I’ve never heard of anyone actually finding their bike at the boathouse or catching a rower stealing.”

“Of course not,” snorted Eren. “The lake is literally right there, why would they leave them laying around the boathouse?”

“So you’re just going to argue that you don’t need proof because lake?” I said, exasperated.

“I guess I am,” Eren said, “But, to be fair, you’re arguing that we can only accuse someone if they’re dumb enough to overlook completely obvious flaws in their crimes.”

“And that’s really beside the point,” Marlowe interrupted. “It’s not just the bikes, or even just the rowers. It’s that there’s a solid pattern all over the school of people with large amounts of money being allowed to do things that other students can’t without repercussion, because donations.”

“It’s basically bribery,” said Eren, practically snarling. Hitch was looking back and forth between Eren and Marlowe like she was unsure whether to laugh, seriously try to explain her point of view, or just shut up and let them shout. That’s a bit of an exaggeration - they weren’t shouting. Yet. Eren’s tone made it very clear that she was about one more snide comment away from setting off a rage bomb, and if Marlowe was anything like her (which it increasingly seemed she very much was), it would be a very messy detonation. Time to deploy some words.

“We’re not saying it’s _right_ ,” I said lightly. “We’re just saying that’s how it is, and it seems to get the job done.”

“Sure it does, as long as the ‘job’ you’re talking about it just moving along at the status quo. I think I’d like a little more than that, considering I earned a spot here too,” Eren said, rounding on me. She looked annoyed, to say the least, lips drawn back a bit and eyes narrowed. It took a conscious effort to avoid whistling inconspicuously.

“Notice she said ‘earned’,” said Marlowe, before I could gather enough wits to counter Eren. “Because I’m sure those legacies are smart and all, but let’s not pretend that admissions is a pure meritocracy.”

“That’s the really tough part, too,” said Eren, jumping on Marlowe’s offered line. I could feel the conversation getting entirely out of control, and this time I decided the only reasonable thing to do was try to ride it out. Eren continued, gaining speed much like a steam engine. “You really can’t argue that their economic and family status doesn’t matter. Everyone tells me I had lower standards because I’m female and brown; my classmates look at me and assume that I’m not as qualified as the white men in my class because affirmative action or whatever, when really legacies have the biggest leg up of any admissions group - but when Ymir was getting shit, it was because she’s a gay latina engineer, not because she’s a double legacy, even though that’s way more helpful than anything else. And before anyone’s like ‘oh well there’s not very many legacies, how bad could it be’, I’d like to say that there are fewer than ten non-athlete black American men whose families make less than $100,000 in this whole school. Sure, that’s a very specific example, but again: ten. That’s not even in the realm of one percent, it’s less than half a percent, and yet I still see all these white boys with persecution complexes because their buddies lost the spot to ‘some black kid’.”

I was watching Eren out of the corner of my eye; her nostrils were flared and her mouth was thin. Marlowe was nodding along. Hitch looked a bit shell-shocked, but nothing she wouldn’t recover from. I decided to try to buy her a minute, even if my point was shaky, and said, “Nothing is a meritocracy. And besides, is that really what we want? A pure academic meritocracy? The school could probably coast on rich alumni for a while, but once they die off and we’re left with all these pure academics, how’s it supposed to keep going? Pure brains does not money make, and if the alumni don’t or can’t donate, free or low tuition becomes unsustainable.”

“Besides,” Hitch added, back quicker than I expected, “There’s another problem. It looks like Jean is a bit too nice to say it, but the real problem for you is probably that a pure meritocracy would probably look a lot like the crew team. Before you jump over the table, give me a second.

“The amount of money a family makes doesn’t just mean college donations. It means tutoring and small private schools, and before that, good nutrition and sleep and less stress on kids and even pregnant moms, which leads to better grades and better tests. We probably already knew that, and we also know that it’s just another form of the same issue - rich people have access to all these things, and kids who spend a couple hours a day with family (who are home and hanging out, not working) do way better in school. The upshot of all this is, a pure, objective Meritocracy, with no thought to circumstance, might have even more legacies than we see today. At least with admissions how it is, there’s some flawed attempt to put everyone on level ground.”

“That’s great and all,” snarled Eren, “but why can’t you just take different standards for certain people? Weight the average. Say this person got a 2000 SAT but went to this shitty school, so that’s akin to this kid who got a 2200 but took three prep classes. You can adjust, if you know that each prep class raises a score by like 200 and this kid took three just knock the score down to 1600.”

“You mean like having different standards for people based on economic and social standing?” I drawled. Eren glared. I shrugged at my empty plate, then sighed and said, “Fine, I don’t really think that’s the same thing. Still, you have to consider the heart of your argument.”

“Fine,” she growled. “I have considered it. And I still think you’re wrong. But I suppose I should give my closing a little more thought.”

“And that’ll make it even more crushing,” said Hitch amicably.

There followed a minor lull in conversation as everyone considered whether it was a dessert day or not. Marlowe volunteered to check the cheesecake levels while everyone else rekindled the conversation, this time around next years classes, which turned out to be a less divisive if still contentious topic that carried us through the end of dinnertime, despite the dearth of cheesecake (which honestly had probably run out before  I even arrived).

“Please put your dishes up; we’re trying to clear the hall,” announced one of the student workers, refilling the table napkin dispenser with a general sense of lethargy.

“We were just going,” said Eren, picking up her plate.

“Wait a minute. We never actually said - do we want to do the roommate thing?” I asked, turning to Hitch and Marlowe.

Marlowe nodded. Hitch giggled, then said, “I think that would be a complete disaster. Sounds like fun.”


	13. Purple Tulips and Pear Blossoms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the plot thickens, and thirteen is not a lucky number.

“Hey, are you going to the q party this weekend? Last one of the year,” Ymir asked as we walked back from practice.

“‘Course I am, your room’s right around the corner.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not hosting this time. Someone else volunteered… for the first time all damn year.”

“Congrats,” I said dryly. “Does that mean I’m not gonna get tapped to help out, for the first time all damn year?”

Ymir snorted as we passed a pair of soccer players going the opposite direction. “Like you put so much effort into it - but you know what, at least I haven’t had to scrape you off my floor yet, unlike _some people_ I could mention.”

Historia punched her in the arm. “Anyway. It’s in Mina’s room, on the North end of Carnegie. I hear she’s inviting a bunch of her friends, too, so it won’t just be the same old crowd.”

I grunted. We walked in silence for a few more minutes, past the visitor parking lot. It took a full 20 minutes to get from the field to Carnegie, and we were the closest dorm on campus. The red-headed stepchild of fields. The nearest bathrooms were in the crew house, a quarter mile away, and they wouldn’t even let us in - Ymir and I had tried at the beginning of the year and been met by some very unfriendly heavyweights. None of this musing was getting me any closer to answering Ymir’s question. There was only one thing that would, really.

“Will Samantha be there?”

She had to have known I would ask; her answer was too smooth to be spontaneous. “I don’t know, but probably. She is friends with Mina, after all. In fact, it kinda seems like she’s friends with everyone.”

I knew that. It was perfectly obvious from every interaction I had with Sasha, or Marco, or really anyone living in Carnegie: everyone loved Samantha. She was funny, and smart, sharp as a tack but not mean about it. There was no reason not to like her. I still hadn’t answered the question.

“Jean,” Ymir muttered, “You can’t go through the next three years avoiding her.”

_Watch me._ “Fine. I’ll go to Mina’s q party.”

So I went to Mina’s q party.

It was a decent party, all things considered. Mina had tapped not only the typical attendees, but as Ymir had heard, an assortment of friends from other places. A good chunk of them looked to be exchange students or some sort of visitor, on campus for the weekend - god knows why - and they shifted the energy of the whole party in a frankly more sexual direction. Ah, the lure of second base with someone who would never been seen on campus again, and who you could therefore embellish or underrate to your heart’s content. I was sitting in the corner with a glass of whiskey, talking to no one.

Mina also had a slightly different approach to drinks than Ymir and I. She didn’t mix punch. She left rows of bottles and mixers on the table, thus allowing the guests to regulate their intake slightly more efficiently. I suspected this was also a result of different consumption styles, i.e. that we bought the drinks for the party and Mina just kinda put her liquor shelf on the table. This was not necessarily a bad thing, as it enabled me to drink the hardness I preferred, and honestly the punch we made (while amazing) had its limitations. Namely if you you were some sort of heathen who didn’t like it, you were screwed. There was something on that table for everyone, though - my glass of fireball and I were joined by Marco (cranberry with vanilla vodka) Eren (vodka, plain, double shot, obviously), Armin (green apple vodka), and Mikasa (orange juice).

None of them spoke after sitting beyond a basic ‘what’s up’; I think they were more interested trying to find the space where the bass was least bone-rattling, the rainbow dappled lights less dazzling (unlike Ymir, who had acquired a fringed crop top from somewhere and was raising hell on the section of floor designated for dancing). Maybe I was biased by my own motivations, but either way, no one was saying much when Samantha slid over, fresh off the dance floor.

“What’s going on over here?” she said, all smiles.

“Nothing much,” Eren shouted back, trying to be heard over the music’s pulse. “Just taking a minute, getting in the rhythm. Also drinking.”

“Cool,” Sam replied. Then she flopped, drink miraculously still contained, onto the couch. Hip to hip with me.

She turned to face the rest of the corner, her back to me. I was on some level just grateful not to be forced to look her in the eye, even if the exclusion stung a bit. She was opening a chat with Eren in particular. I looked out over the dance floor, as though I wasn’t paying attention to the conversation, let alone invested.

“You know, I’ve seen you around a couple times. What’s your name? Ellen?” she asked. I could all but hear her smile.

“Eren, actually, but hey - close enough. Is it Samantha?”

“Sam’s fine. So do you guys usually come to q parties, or..?”

I wasn’t likely to talk again as long as Samantha was there, but that didn’t mean that I had to sit in silence, either. I could stand if I wanted. So I got up and left the room, out into the hallway and out the exit door. The snow was a memory now, but the night wasn’t exactly what one would call warm. I took a deep breath before remembering that even if my inebriated ass was allowed outside, my drink wasn’t. I slipped into a convenient corner and set to work emptying my cup.

So there I was, creeping in the corner, when a knot of Mina’s friends gushed out the same door and onto the lawn. There were about 6 of them, all dudes, and by the sound of them all from some part of Britain, just standing around like lawn ornaments. What the hell. Between the noise and the crowd, this was probably my only chance to talk to them. Besides, drunk me put on a killer fake-British accent. At least, I was pretty sure she did.

“‘Ay. What’re you lot up to?” I said, pulse just a little faster than usual. Trying to bluff a bunch of strangers into thinking you’re one of their countrymen is surprisingly stressful.

The blond man nearest me held up a cigarette. “Want a puff?”

“Nah,” I said. “Just stepped out for some air and figured I’d say hello before returning to limbo.” I thought I sounded atrocious, but none of them so much as batted an eye. Thanks, intro to acting. Also alcohol.

“Too right. Mina’s a nice girl with a good room, but it’s not exactly spacious for this kind of get-together.”

“Not that I’m complaining, though - the more the merrier,” added one of the other boys. He seemed anxious not to be mistaken for rude. I smiled at him, quickly, just to show I wasn’t offended. Hey, it (very deliberately) wasn’t my room.

“Right. Well, it’s always good to see some new faces. You know how we can get… when it’s the same people all year you can start to get this weird incest feel and, well. Good of you to come, I suppose.”

They stared at me for a long moment, as though not sure if I was joking. I wasn’t entirely sure what I meant, either, so instead of clarifying I pretended to take a drink out of my empty cup. Fortunately their attention spans did not allow them to wait (or they just decided I was crazy) and by the time I lowered it they were mostly back to chatting among themselves. I stuck around for a good while longer, though, offering the occasional jibe or voicing agreement, until (finally) one of them said “Wait. You, new girl - say that again.”

“Say wot?” I said, taking the accent to a new and ludicrous height.

He stared at me for a moment to long, so I doffed my glass to him, smiled, and said, “Time for a refill. Cherri-o.”

I didn’t get ten feet before launching into a detailed self interrogation regarding why on earth I thought that was a good idea, and also whether they thought I was mocking them, and also whether that meant I was a terrible person. Fortunately, but the time I got the remaining 50 feet to Mina’s room, I had decided on no uncertain terms that it was just a bit of fun and if they got their panties in a twist about it that certainly wasn’t my problem. Unfortunately, I was concluding this thought while pouring my next drink, and somehow ‘stop worrying’ translated to a frankly unreasonable amount of whiskey. I considered pouring it back, realized that was completely inviable, shrugged, and placed it in my mental ‘what-the-fuck-ever’ basket, along with my regard for British feelings and concern for my own physical safety.

Of the people I’d left on the couch, not one was still there; they’d dispersed around the room like dandelion seeds in a sweat-and-hip-hop-soaked storm. Instead of battling my way to those uncharted social waters (or worse, dancing), I simply looked around for a bare section of wall near a corner and off the dance floor, pressed my back against it, and slid down until I was sitting on the floor, knees at my chest. It occurred to me that I looked like a frightened child, and that this was not a good look. I stretched out one leg out in front and propped the elbow holding my drink on the other knee. Classic.

So I sat for a short while, gazing into the distance, contemplating my place in the universe and enjoying the quiet in my brain. Nothing but music, a gentle buzz, and some tranquil musings on the deposition of salt formations. Just as I was transitioning from salt to carbonates, I heard a soft thump and turned to see Ymir, sliding down the wall beside me.

“I was gonna offer you a drink, but I think you’ve got enough,” she said. She seemed quiet. Probably just tired. She looked at me sideways, a bit, but mostly just around the room. “Tough break, friend.”

“Hm?” I hummed as loudly as I could over the music.

“Well… I mean… Sam…”

“What about her? I knew she was probably coming, it’s not a big deal,” I snapped.

She turned away a bit, then back, suddenly awkward. “Did you. Uh. Did you not see?”

“What?”

“It just looked like you were coming from the hall, and she just left, so I thought you must have seen…”

Whatever she had to say couldn’t be worse than the growing panic her cagey words fed in my chest. “What is it, Ymir?”

“Well uh. Samantha just left.”

“Okay.”

“With Marco.”

There was no more panic in my chest. There didn’t seem to be anything at all, in fact. I didn’t say anything, I don’t think. I didn’t do anything else, either, for quite a while. Ymir tried to talk to me, I’m sure. She might have gone for a hug. I think other people tried to talk, too. I don’t really know what went on next. I just remember looking down, and seeing that my glass was empty, and so was the dance floor, and it was time to go. That was fine. I could go sleep. Only my legs didn’t really feel like standing. Ymir was sitting on a bench a few feet away. I decided to text her.

When I opened my phone, though, she’d already texted me. There were a few inquiries into my health, needs, desires, and then at the bottom: _If you want my advice, stop looking back and look to your left._

I looked left. The pressure on my shoulder resolved itself into a dark, familiar, head. I sat there for a while longer. Then I stood up and went home.

I entered my code; I brushed my teeth; I stripped; I got in bed. I did not sleep. I checked my phone. There was Ymir: _Also dude forreal are u going to be okay? Do I need to send someone over there? Armin is high-key volunteering_

I didn’t know how okay, or not, I would be. I did know I didn’t want Armin to come over. _I’ll be fine. It just surprised me._ I paused. Then I decided to type a little more. Ymir deserved an explanation - and she might even understand. _It’s just like. Remember that night after rugby banquet? And I told you guys all about me and Sam? It’s just like. How could she listen to that whole fucking thing and then be like ‘o hey sam’s hot’._

_ I know _

A pause. Then, from Ymir again. _I_ _n Marco’s defense, she is really hot, but I can see why that doesn’t matter, too_

I put my phone down. A few minutes later, Ymir sent one more text: _Goodnight. See you tomorrow_


	14. Sagebrush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which aftermath and inciting incident crash into each other and fuse.

When I woke up the next morning, I had things to do, and I was not inclined to get out of bed to do them. I seemed to have been struck with an intense feeling of apathy towards everything from my neglected language homework to my own physical pain, a leftover from the week’s game. There was probably a hangover involved, too. I woke up early, which usually happens when I drink too much. It took nearly an hour to work up the motivation to stand up and get water, and even then, it wasn’t enough to put actual clothes on. I wrapped the spare sheet around myself, filled my water bottle, and then laid down. Again.

I think I dozed off for a while, but at any rate, I was still there at one when Ymir texted again.

_ U coming to lunch? Its sunday they took out the choco fountain _

_I should probably answer that,_ I thought. _Otherwise she might worry. Or try to come over._ I continued to lay in bed.

_ Dude r u alive? Do u want armin to call pufty on you again? _

No, I did not want Armin to call public safety. I picked up my phone and answered her. _Yeah, I’m alive._

_o good now get down here_

Rude. _No._

_ …do u want food? Historia wants to bring u food _

_ She doesn’t have to bring me food, Ymir. I’m not dying. _

_ ya well u maybe should come demonstrate cause otherwise she’s on her way _

I dropped my phone on the mattress and buried my head in my pillow. Either lay here and wait for Historia and not answer the door when she showed up and be the asshole who had a royal hissyfit for no apparent reason, or… get up, get dressed, and go to lunch. Sometimes friends are the worst.

_Is anyone else there?_ I asked, still prone, feeling ever less inclined to move.

_ no Sasha and everyone already left but we were hoping ud show up _

Okay. Just Ymir and Historia. I could handle just Ymir and Historia. _I’ll be there in like 15 minutes calm yourselves,_ I replied, and dragged myself out of bed.

Twenty-five minutes and several _come on dude_ texts later, I plopped my self, a veggie omelette, a large doughnut, and also a small doughnut down across from Ymir, on Historia’s side of the table. I figured it might impair her concerned stare if she had to look at me sideways. Preliminary findings suggested I was incorrect. Neither of them spoke when I first sat, apparently waiting for me to start the conversation. I drank some water instead.

“So? How’re you feeling?” asked Historia, glaring at my ear.

“Fine. How about you, Ymir? Get home okay?” I said. I cut into the eggs.

“Yeah.”

More quiet. Ymir and Historia seemed to have finished eating some time ago and were now just hanging around with drinks, which made perfect sense given they must have been there an hour already, but it also meant there was nothing for them to do but sit there and watch me consume alternating breakfast food. I suppose they could talk to me, too, but chatting was frankly low priority. I couldn’t quite figure out what was high priority, so I ate my omelette and waited for them to maybe, I don’t know, talk among themselves.

“Mina knows how to throw a party, doesn’t she?” said Historia, in a voice somewhere between bright and accusatory.

Ymir nodded. “Place was on fire. I know at least two people got picked up by Pufty, and I don’t think I’ve seen half those people before in my life.”

“Wait, who got picked up?”

“Some guy I don’t know; I think he might have been one of the British dudes. Also one of Mina’s roommates. Oh, and Bertholt, but that wasn’t from the q.”

Historia side-eyed me again, then said, “How’d that happen? Bert’s solid.”

“Bert’s big, is what Bert is, but apparently she’s not actually the best with the whole drinking thing. It’s okay, though, Reiner carried her in and she went home this morning. Sick, not hurt.”

Historia sipper her coffee. Then she sighed, plunked the mug down, and said, “I’m sorry, but this is dumb. Jean: are you going to be okay?”

I swallowed a piece of doughnut, took another drink, and said, “Yes.”

“Uh-huh,” said Ymir, apparently on board with Historia’s change in tactics. “Look, I’m sorry about what happened. Marco was being a shithead, and if it makes you feel better she had the decency to look ashamed at breakfast. Even asked where you were. But don’t you think this is kind of a lot?”

“What?” I asked, now picking the smaller doughnut into several equally sized pieces.

“ _This_. Having a mental breakdown every time Samantha looks in your general direction, or in this case, doesn’t. She wasn’t ever good for you, and I think you need to get past her.”

“Uh-huh.” I swallowed a doughnut chunk.

“Okay, just… we’re not trying to make you feel worse, I just think it’s time you honestly confronted your issues and moved on,” said Historia, obviously trying to be gentle. I stared at my glass for a while and quietly regretted leaving my room. “And I know that’s not going to happen all at once, but I want you to know that we’re here for you, okay? And we want to help.”

“At least so you’ll stop being so damn depressing,” added Ymir. I was glad of her humor. I even smiled, a bit, at my glass. “Oh, you’re not paralyzed. That’s good to know.”

I hesitated. Then I looked up and said, “No, I’m not. I’m not dead, either, surprisingly.”

“Surprisingly,” said Ymir. Another pause descended. This time I was actually aware of the awkwardness.

“Okay, look, the thing is…” I sighed. “It’s just that… I’m not even mad Sam left with someone. In your immortal words, Sam is hot. I don’t care. It’s just that I… felt like I… really opened up to Marco, you know? Like I tried to make her understand that I’d had a really bad time, and Sam was a big part of that, so for her to just jump on her was - upsetting. She knew, you know? And I know she can sleep with whoever she wants. I don’t care about that. But at the same time, I obviously do, and I guess I don’t really know why either.”

Thoughtful silence. Then, Ymir shrugged, and said, “Hard to say. Maybe you feel like Marco’s disregarding your story means what you described isn’t a big deal and _that_ means you’re overreacting and have been all year. Maybe it’s residual jealousy. Maybe you were even worried for Marco - if Sam fucked you up this bad, why would Marco do any better?”

I took a breath to respond, but Historia cut me off (with her voice and also elbow): “The other thing is, it doesn’t matter. Or, well, it does, in the long term. You’ve got some issues to work out, dude. But for now, the thing is just to _move on_. Samantha obviously has.”

“And what do you think I’ve been trying to do all year? Grow a misery tree?” I grumbled, rubbing my side.

“Pretty much yeah,” said Ymir. “But you know what, you’re not always a mass of depression, and dare I say there’s one person in particular linked to a not inconsequential number of those times.”

_If you want my advice, stop looking back and look to your left._ Very clever, Ymir. Still, thinking about Eren now didn’t make me feel much better. Even the memory of her head on my shoulder just tied my guts in knots. I ate another chunk before realizing this was the first all day I’d had a real emotion response to, well, anything. I swallowed slowly. “You might even be right.”

Ymir’s smile was crooked. “Hey now, I’m not as dumb as I look - or, worse, as dumb as you look.”

“So it this the part where you tell me to get off my sadness chair and ask Eren to prom?”

“In your case, I was thinking a boxing match,” mused Historia, once again sipping her coffee. “But prom works too, I guess.”

“I mean, I’m not gonna tell you that’s what you’ve gotta do,” said Ymir, ignoring Historia verbally while high-fiving her across the table, “but maybe if that’s where your mind went immediately, that’s where it wants to be.”

“That doesn’t really make sense,” I said, considering. I wasn’t really sure I was ready to cut the chase and drop my charade. It had become almost comforting in its stability, in the lack of real commitment involved - but then, there was Eren. _“We need a fourth person. Wanna be my roommate?”_ Bastard. Putting me in a position like this. I knew she didn’t do it on purpose, but - I smiled grimly - I was positive she’d think it was funny as hell. “But I think you might have a point.”

Ymir put her mug to her lips, made a face at the cold coffee, and said “Oh, good. So what’re you going to do now?”

“What” had been a bouquet of three black tulips and seven sprays of tiny pink pear flowers cut from a local park wrapped in deep purple ribbon and accompanied by a small purple envelope addressed to Eren containing a coded invitation to meet in the garden by the chapel on midnight on Wednesday, along with an acknowledgment that the entire affair was seriously shady and she should probably bring a friend. Go big or go home.

I left it outside the door to the room Eren and Armin shared, then practically fled the scene. I had played off being caught red-handed once, at considerable strain to my credibility; I seriously doubted I could do it again. Plus my nerves were so shot I considered asking Ymir to do it for me, but honestly she wasn’t any less conspicuous (‘Gee, Ymir’s here with flowers - I wonder who would possibly have asked her to do that’). I slid around the corner and away from the scene, smooth as a a snake in a butter churn. It was Sunday night.


	15. Fern Accents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Preparations.

Monday, I went to the flower shop on the street above campus. I’d never gone before, or at least, never bought anything - flowers are expensive, you know? Why buy flowers when there were perfect daffodils growing on the hills south of campus, and flowering bushes every five feet, and the college office threw out a lovely arrangement every Thursday at three? Still, one way or another this was the last bouquet. This was worth shelling out.

I wanted irises, I remember. It had started as personal preference, but I looked up the meanings to see what Eren would make of them and found associations with faith, royalty, and hope. They were completely and utterly sappy, but at this point? Perfect. I wanted irises.

The store was painted a green that was clearly meant to be floral but was instead evocative of the precise shade of vomit used in _The Exorcist_. The painted sign showed a huge yellow bisected sunflower behind the name of the store (Council Flowers), so that the top half created the illusion of a sunset. Probably not the intended imagery.

The first thing I saw on entering were two rows of refrigerators lining the entry, each stuffed to the gills with flowers - huge, bursting barrels of scarlet roses, a basket of pink peonies the size of my face, brilliant orange tiger lilies standing proud above their larger pale cousins, sprigs of purple foxglove three feet high, a crate of sunflowers, tropical white gardenias with their overwhelming scent. The same green paint that had been so overwhelming outside had coated the shelves and windowsills inside, where it created a tasteful counterpoint to wood siding and stone tiled floors. The shelves were covered in pots of various materials and sizes, as well as tiny succulents, a couple larger cactuses, and a great tangle of a jade plant. There must have been humidifiers set up in-store to keep the flowers outside the refrigerator from drying up, too; I felt cool, fresh water on my skin as soon as I stepped in the door. The whole place smelled like rain and flowers, and I found myself wondering why I had never stopped in before - even if I couldn’t afford the smallest pot on the shelf.

As I stood in the entry hall, taking in the sheer mass of flowers, a sheaf of broadleaf accent ferns entered the back of the shop, cursing quietly. Whoever was carrying them was completely obscured from the hips up, but I could see a pair of knotted hands white-knuckled around the container’s lip. On impulse, I hurried to the back of the store and met the cursing ferns at the counter. Perhaps if I introduced myself as a friendly, useful sort of person, the ferns would give me a discount.

“Here, let me get that,” I said, grabbing the tub right next to the hands.

The ferns chuckled darkly. “Thanks,” they said, and the hands let go.

Regret. Immediate, overwhelming regret; the tub must have been brimming with water because it weighted about a hundred pounds - way, way heavier than I was prepared to carry, but I couldn’t drop it because wow way to appear helpful and friendly, so I just kind of bowed over as slowly as possible and tried to settle it on the floor a) without breaking the plastic and b) like I meant to do that. I was at least half successful.

Once the tub was safely on the floor, I looked up to see who I had so successfully disgraced myself before. The ferns had a face now, a man’s, youthful features wearing a distinctly elderly expression. He was very short, had extraordinarily pale eyes, impeccable skin, and was very clearly judging me.

I felt the color rising on my cheekbones. Resolutely ignoring this sensation, I met his eyes and said, “So, where do you want these?”

I certainly hoped that was the beginning of a smile raising the skin around his narrow, deep-set eyes. “Just put them in the fridge by the roses. Can’t sell one without the other anyway.”

The refrigerator. By the door. _C’mon Jean you can do this lift with your legs not your back it’s like ten feet it’ll be fine you can do this_. It didn’t help that the man was watching me, impassive, one hand on his hip as I straightened my back, gripped the lip of the tub, and straightened my legs.

The moment I got the tub in the air I knew I wouldn’t be able to breathe without huffing, so I just didn’t breathe. _C’mon ten feet you got this just take five steps, go on, one. Two. Three._ I still couldn’t breathe, and I definitely couldn’t open the refrigerator door without putting down the ferns. Just after I realized I would have to put down the tub and pick it up again and just before I fell in to despair, the short man appeared by my side, quiet as a cat, and opened the glass door. I half set, half swung the tub onto the lowest shelf, then struggled to take a breath without gasping. Just as I was congratulating myself on both keeping the tub intact and not gaping like a winded rhinoceros, I realized that my face was radiating heat. I once again chose to ignore this entirely in favor of grinning at the short man, who was once again watching me with one hand on his hip.

“Much appreciated. Now, wha’do you need?”

“Um, I was just wondering if you had any irises in store? I didn’t see any in the front, but I thought maybe if you were unpacking, or…”

“You’re SOL, kid. It’s Mother’s Day this weekend; that delivery is stuffed to the gills with carnations and pink roses. Besides, Irises are a late flower, they’re rare this time of year,” he said. I chewed the inside of my lip for a moment and twisted my mouth, trying to think of what else to say, when he continued, “Tell, you what, though - I’ve got another shipment in Wednesday. Come by at about 4:30 and we’ll see what we’ve got.”

“Uh, yeah. Okay. Thanks.”

“No problem,” he said. Then he raised his eyebrows at me, still stagnant next to the refrigerator. “Anything else?” he said pointedly.

“Nope. Nothing. I’ll come back Wednesday.”

I stepped around him, careful not to slip in the puddle of water I had just realized must have slopped out of my bucket, and headed for the door. No irises, come back Wednesday. That was cutting it rather fine, but what was I going to do, leave another note? “Oh yeah sorry about this but I’ve got some preparations to take care of so can you maybe come Thursday night instead? What? No, the windowless van rental didn’t fall through - why do you ask?” Short answer, no. But then what if he didn’t have irises Wednesday? “We’ll see what we’ve got”. Not exactly a guarantee. I was so immersed in thought I almost ran headlong into Professor Smith as he headed back to campus the way I’d come. I might have, actually, if he hadn’t spoken to me first.

“Jean! Good evening. Did you enjoy todays’ class?”

“What?” I said, startled. I switched gears as quickly as I could, trying to remember what we’d covered.

“I’m sorry, I can see I’ve disturbed a deep thought. I was just wondering how you felt about today’s discussion. I read your response after class and it was very well reasoned - enough so that it may have been productive to bring up some of those points in-class. I suppose I was wondering why you decided to limit them to your written response. You’re not usually, ah, shy,” he said, amused.

His eyes are so incredibly blue, but that’s not why I couldn’t meet them. I looked over his shoulder, like I was watching someone walk toward us, while I answered, “Oh, that. It’s just… well, there were plenty of other things to talk about. And it’s kind of a niche issue, you know? I didn’t think we’d want to spend a bunch of time in-class talking about something like that.”

He tilted his head. _Why won’t he blink? Why the hell are his eyes so goddam blue?_ “A class like mine exists in no small part to force people to discuss ideas they would rather neglect. Things that are often shirked as 'niche issues', and above all, facts that are uncomfortable to confront. If your only concern was that a prolonged discussion regarding the failure of academic texts dealing directly with LGBT identities in prison to at all address bisexuality in class was that may have discomforted your classmates, I encourage you to bring it up next time, at least for a few minutes. I thought there may have been some other reason you didn’t want to initiate it yourself…” he trailed off, still staring. I read somewhere that people who are listening usually look at the person speaking, while a speaker looks in a variety of directions, either to help themselves think or to avoid staring at the listener. Professor Smith apparently didn’t get the memo. I shook my head slightly, and he picked his trail back up. “In which case I would offer to look at your responses ahead of time and open the discussion myself. As it stands, though, I think your well-established rhetorical skill should serve you well.”

I unstuck my throat enough to answer. “Okay. Yeah, I’ll remember that next time.”

“Thank you, Jean. I never thought I’d need to tell you to have more confidence,” he said with a small smile. “As usual, it was a pleasure to have you in class today.”

“Thank you, professor,” I said, then finally turned my eyes to his and gave him a quick grin. “I’ve got to go, meeting a friend for dinner in Forbes. See you next week.”

“Until next week, then. It’s modern mass incarceration - don’t forget to read the Alexander!”

I spun back to face him while walking, flashing a double thumbs up and the same fast smile.

 

* * *

I did, indeed, come back to the florist on Wednesday. I walked in at 4:40. The fern man was in a sink up to his elbows, trying to resurrect a desiccated Peace Lily, but he saw me and shouted “Gimme a second,” as he turned the faucet off and filled in the rest of the pot with damp soil. He moved the plant into the second sink bay and motioned me forward.

“You’re the iris guy, right?” he asked, turning the faucet back on and rinsing the dirt from his forearms.

“Yeah, that’s me. Were there any in your Mother’s Day truck?”

He sighed through his nose. His arms were clean, and he had now graduated to picking the earth from under his blunt nails. “Not a one. Sorry, kid. We’ve got lots of other flowers - what are they for, anyway?”

“Well… they’re for someone else,” I said, chewing my lip again.

“I figured. Who? Not your mom, I take it. Not usually for dad. Boyfriend? Get-well-soon?”

“Um. Well, it’s someone,” he raised a pencil-thin and slightly impatient eyebrow, and I continued in a rush, “Someone who I’m not dating, but want to, and honestly it’s kind of a mess? I don’t want to put any pressure on, but I really, really need flowers.”

“Has he turned you down already?” he asked, eyebrow still raised.

“No! Jeez. I know how to take a no,” I said, slightly more forcefully than was strictly necessary. His eyebrow dropped, and he sighed with relief.

“Thank god. You would not believe how many puppy-love fools come in here to get flowers for a girl who doesn’t want a thing to do with ‘em. I wouldn’t take issue, but for one thing you just know she’s not going to appreciate them properly - who would, in those circumstances - and for another, it’s fucking rude. Anyway, you’re not them, so let’s see what we can do. You won’t want red roses; they’re the obvious choice but way too charged for this kind of thing. Not yellow, either, does bad things for a face like yours. White roses might do the trick - keep the romance angle, but without the big damn truckload of baggage…” His freshly clean hand was rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

“Maybe something blue?” I said, because I remembered the Eren’s throwaway favorite color comment and because I felt like I should say something.

“Blue? Yeah, sure, maybe. Pretty color, not too heavy, very supportive, friendly without being passive, strong without being overwhelming. Blue’s a good main color. What’s your budget?”

“…about ten dollars.”

He just stared for a moment, then said, “Alright then. Not a bouquet so much as corsage, but done well it’ll be just as good. Now, so far we have ‘blue’. Anything else?”

“Not really? To be honest I was kind of invested in the irises,” I said.

“Okay, well, we definitely don’t have any irises, so…” he went on from there, what was expensive, what was cheap, maybe one big flower and some accents (blue and white, he was sure, was the way to go - unless I’d rather throw some purple in?). I admit I wasn’t paying the most attention, which was fine, because about the time he circled back to using a white rose with sprays of forget-me-nots I had an idea. Was it as good as his corsage would be? Almost certainly not, but it was my idea, and I was going through with it.

“Actually, can I just get three white roses?” I said, interrupting his debate on whether a rose or a cornflower would be a more appropriate centerpiece.

“Excuse me?” he said softly. His mouth was a line, his eyes flashed. I suddenly and forcefully remembered him with that tub of ferns held out in front, perfectly prepared to haul them to the front of the store. Part of me was ready to buckle up and buy whatever the last thing was he’d said was, but I pushed again before that part could convince the rest of me.

“I need three white roses. That’s it,” I said calmly, staring back.

His mouth quirked on the left, and he shrugged. “Whatever you say, kid. I can get behind simplicity. You want a fern with that?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Then go pick one out. Or a couple, I don’t care, ferns are a dime a dozen. No, you can’t have a dozen. Grab your roses, too - not those, those are long stem, they’re four dollars each - and bring them up when you’re done.”

I opened the fridge and looked through the barrel of (short-stemmed, white) roses until I found three that suited me. No brown spots or blemishes. I left the coyly coiled, young roses and took three as close to their prime as I could find. They wouldn’t last as long, of course, but they only needed to last another seven hours (and my god, did I only have seven hours left?). As I rifled through the roses, two in hand, the fern man flipped the ‘open’ sign on the door. A surreptitious glance at the clock on the back wall told me it was 5:07. Cursing quietly, I grabbed the next passable rose I saw, snatched a pair of fern sprigs, and strode toward the counter. The fern man came after me, his sign flipped and door closed.

About that point I realized I should probably stop calling him the fern man, and asked, “By the way, what’s your name?”

“Levi,” he said quickly, punching in the price of the roses and jabbing the multiplication key. “Yours?” The register spat out a receipt.

He tore off the receipt as I answered, “Jean,” and handed him my ten.

He paused, then looked up. “Here’s you’re receipt and change. Let me wrap these.” He looked past me for a moment, then his mouth twisted again. I turned, and saw nothing but Professor Smith at the bus stop outside, looking at his phone. When I looked back, the roses were packed neatly in their little cone of plastic, a packet of flower food was taped to the inside, and the whole bundle was tied with a neat florist’s ribbon.  “And tell that great blonde buffoon to get off my sidewalk on your way out.”

I wasn’t entirely sure how well that was going to go over, but I nodded anyway. I was halfway to the door before he called out. “Hey, kid! Good luck.”

I stared for a moment, stomach churning. The whole affair snapped to a startling, immediate reality. It felt like at least ten seconds of silence, before my mood clicked and I finally smiled. It was a genuine smile, too, not like the one I gave him Monday while contemplating the hernia his ferns were about to give me. After all, he’d wished me luck, and after a bit of thought… maybe I felt lucky. “Thanks.” He didn’t smile back, but he nodded, and I decided that was good enough.

Professor Smith turned when I came out of the store. Suddenly self-conscious, I turned the roses into the backhand grip I had used so often to sneak flowers out of the Forbes entry, or so passing cars wouldn’t see the glint of my knife in the public gardens. It was completely useless in broad daylight with a foot-long cellophane wrapping, but what can you do.

“Jean. Fancy seeing you again so soon,” he said, expression pleasantly neutral.

“Yeah, it is kinda strange. Also I don’t want to make this weird or anything, but the guy in there-“ I jerked by head back toward the flower shop “-told me to, I quote, ‘tell that great blonde buffoon to get off my sidewalk.’ Not the way I would normally speak to a professor, but the dude could probably break me over his knee, so…” I trailed off, awkward in the face of the Professor’s utterly unruffled expression.

“Yes, he does tend to give the impression that great physical pain is but a misplaced glance away. I must say, I am somewhat mollified that you think I don’t - and of course it gave you an excellent reason to call your professor a buffoon,” he said. He finally cracked a small smile. “Don’t worry, Jean. Obedient to Levi’s wishes, I will get off his sidewalk.”

He made to move further down the street, away from campus. I walked about ten steps in the opposite direction, then, struck by sudden curiosity, turned to face him again, “Hey, Professor -“ but he was gone. He must have turned into the alley just beyond Council Flowers. Unwilling to wander the backstreets looking for him, I bottled my curiosity and continued back towards my dorm, where I could put my scheme in motion. Eren was going to love it.


	16. Three White Roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> XXI - The World. The culmination of efforts, the fulfillment of a long journey.

When I first got back to my dorm, I went looking for the little squeeze bottle. It took nearly twenty minutes to find it, each one spent alternately mourning my perfect plan, trying to come up with a new one, or cursing to myself. It turned out it had never made it into the drawer, but was still languishing in my backpack alongside the broken glass from my shattered bottles of copper. I poured some water from the hall bathroom into my practice water bottle along with a few drops from the squeeze bottle. Then I squirted another solid fifth of the tiny bottle into the “vase” because I didn’t have all day and they needed to be showing in another six hours. I also added most of the flower food, because why the hell not.

That done, I went down for dinner. After all, there was nothing left to do but wait and eat. I succeeded in one of these things. I sat with Ymir and Sasha, and Ymir tried (less than subtly) to talk me out of it and Sasha laughed nervously and looked back and forth and I sat there as my stomach got progressively less stable. Finally, I just left - went back up to my room to breathe deeply and say ohm or something, anything to make the nerves subside. Instead, I just laid on my bed and stared at the roses, watching their capillaries fill with the contents of my water bottle. Rugby was holding a movie night tonight. Only three people went to the last one. I wasn’t one of them, and neither was Armin - we didn’t usually go to the social stuff with the team, excepting the actual post-game social. The movie would be in Reiner’s room, on the way to the chapel gardens. I could stop by for a while. Maybe talking to the team would make me feel better.

I lay in my room until eleven. Outside, the sun went down in its usual blaze of glory. My hall filled, then emptied again as students headed for the street, and I wondered for the umpteenth time how they could afford to go out Wednesday night, never mind that I too had work for the morning that had an equal(ly tiny) chance of getting done. Finally, I stood. I put my coat on. I never wore coats at school, and it was a warm night, but it seemed appropriate. A plain black trench coat. I tied the waist, then went back to the desk and pulled the roses out of their bottle. The additive had taken nicely, I decided. They were perfect. I wrapped the stems in a shimmery copper ribbon I had never used before, and walked out into the night.

Ten minutes I barely felt later, I knocked on Reiner’s door. Over my churning stomach I heard muffled shouts, giggles, and scuffling, and then Reiner threw the door open. “Jean!” she said, face still lit with laughter. Her expression changed as she took in my coat, and the three roses in my left hand, and finally my expression. I _was_ trying not to look completely ghastly, but as the smile slid from her face I became increasingly convinced that that was one act I wasn’t keeping up. Still, she stood aside to let me in. “Uh, dude, what’s up?”

“Wha’do you mean?” I said as I flitted past her, into the brightly lit room. Armin wasn’t there, thank god, but Bertolt was perched on the couch next to Nifa. They had a monitor set up on the dresser, but no movie - they were watching YouTube, presumably while waiting for anyone else who was planning to come. The walls were hung with prayer flags - Bertolt’s doing, presumably - and a large red flag I didn’t recognize. There was a little alcove next to the window where someone had set up a white folding table with a bottle of ginger ale, an upright cooler, and a bottle of green apple vodka.

“Well, what’s all… that? Where’re you going?” Reiner asked, gesturing up and down.

I hesitated. Nifa and Bertolt were staring. Reiner, too. None of them showed any sign of dropping the topic. _Fuck it_. “I’m going to the chapel garden. I’ve been leaving someone flowers for the last 10 weeks, and I was going to leave it at that, but then they asked to be roommates and… I decided to just come clean. We’re meeting at midnight. She doesn’t know I’m the one who’s been leaving her flowers.”

The room was very quiet. Then it became very loud.

“Ten weeks?”

“A _girl?_ ”

“That’s in like 20 minutes…”

“Yes. All of those, yes.”

Another brief pause, and then Reiner: “Do you want a drink?”

“Yes.”

I rubbed my thumb restlessly over the copper ribbon, then laid the roses on the little white table as Reiner handed me a half full red solo cup. I drank half of it in one breath, thought I should probably be more cautious with Reiner’s punch, and then drank the rest. I shoved down the memory of a trash can containing a handle of grape vodka, a bottle of everclear, and two bottles of sparkling wine. Reiner reached for my cup, and I gave it to her, but shook my head when she reached for the cooler. “No more. If you pour me more punch, I’ll drink it, and that could go… bad.” Reiner shrugged and tossed the cup across the room into her trash. I drifted over to the couch, too nervous to be impressed. Nifa scooted sideways to make room, and I plunked down between her and Bertolt. If I had hoped the drink would settle my stomach, I was mistaken; where I had felt unsteady I was now downright spasmodic. I leaned back on the couch, hands in my hair, and exhaled slowly.

“So… uh… do you wanna talk about it?” asked Bertolt.

I shook my head, then immediately started talking. “It’s stupid. It’s just… I got a dumb crush on her like, over winter break, but I knew it wouldn’t work, so I left the flowers as a way to let it out - like a punching bag instead of a fistfight, but affectionate. Only then she asked me to live with her, and I’ve been less depressive recently, so I kinda thought… go big or go home, you know?”

I was still gazing at the ceiling, but I was reasonably certain they were all staring at me.

“Ten _weeks?_ ” Nifa blurted out. “That’s some fucking dedication. I’ve had real, reciprocated relationships that haven’t lasted that long.”

I groaned.

“Not that that’s a bad thing,” she continued, “I mean, so long as you’re not, like, stalking her or something -“

“Who is it?” asked Reiner.

The wood grains on the ceiling resembled a map of the Gulf Coast. “I don’t think you’d know her. Eren Jeager? She’s Armin’s roommate.”

“I don’t know her,” said Nifa.

“Eren? I’ve seen her a couple times,” said Reiner. I finally took a break from staring at the ceiling to look at Reiner. “She’s cute.”

I groaned again.

“Not as cute as Historia, though. Can’t believe Ymir stole her like that - I thought we had a moment.”

I stared. Historia invited me and Ymir to Reiner’s birthday just so they wouldn’t have to be alone together. Historia decided to walk alone with _me_ for, like, multiple miles to avoid shopping with Reiner. “Ymir’s an unprincipled scuzz, we all knew that. I mean, she’s like my best friend and I love her dearly, but still. Unprincipled scuzz.”

Finally, a laugh - one that thankfully broke enough tension to get the topic back on movies and the eyes off me. I sat quietly while they came up with a film, and buffered it up, and even through the first ten minutes. I’d love to tell you a bit about it, but honestly, it’s slipped my mind. I think there was a song, though, and it didn’t even make my ears bleed. If anyone noticed I was checking my watch at a rate of greater than one per minute, no one commented. Finally, it was 11:45 - I would be there early at around 11:52, I reasoned, just in case _she_ was early. I had to be there.

I extricated myself from Nifa and Reiner (no one else had come, which was good, because four on the couch is about the maximum viable number), swept my roses off the white vinyl table, and headed out.

“Good luck, Jean!” called Reiner after me. A chorus followed her voice - “Relax!” “Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be fine!” The door swung closed behind me. I took my umpteenth deep breath of the evening and set out once again for the garden.

When I arrived, it was still more than ten minutes to midnight. Instead of making me hesitate, my nerves only moved me faster - just like Eren, I guess. Still, once I got close I crept down the open stone stairway towards the entrance to the garden and peered around the corner with my hood raised. I had planned to be there first, and I wasn’t sure what I would do if she beat me. As it turns out, I had nothing to worry about. The garden was empty except for the spring flowers, a stout iron lamppost, and now, me. A s it turned out, just as I had no plan for what to do if she got here first, I also had no plan for what to do if _I_ got here first.

I stood in the entry to the garden for a moment, then strode in and away from the lamppost. There was a stone bench tucked under the top of the staircase I’d taken into the garden with a view that included the entire place. If she came from South campus, toward the lamppost - which she probably would, having never been in the garden before - I would see her coming. I would have one last chance to decide what to do. I strode toward the bench and sat down, coat drawn in around me, roses in hand.

After a moment, I realized I had been rubbing my thumb compulsively over the stems and ribbon. I felt the fibers coming loose, the stalks getting warm and frail, and forced myself to stop. I set the roses on the bench beside me instead. It was four minutes to midnight. The trashcan next to my little bench had been knocked over sideways; I itched to pick up the trash just so I wouldn’t be sitting doing nothing on that cold stone bench in my stupid black trench coat like I was waiting for a rendezvous in a Victorian thriller, but I didn’t want to be scuttling around with handfuls of styrofoam when Eren showed up, so instead I sat, and I waited. The clock kept ticking. According to my watch, it was two minutes to midnight.

I hadn’t expected her to be late ( _she’s not late yet you’re just early calm down stalker_ ). It’s not like I was going to leave at midnight, but god, I just wanted it to be over. Maybe she’d decided not to come. I could see that happening - after all, I’d told her myself it was sketchy. It was one minute to midnight. Then it was midnight. There was no one in sight. Not a sound in the garden, until the low hiss of rain began. It wasn’t heavy at all, not enough to make me want to leave, but it formed shimmering beads on my coat and a fine haze in the air. The streetlight glowed in the mist. It was 12:03.

Okay. So she was a little late. Airlines count anything within 15 minutes of their posted arrival as “on time”, and I could be at least as forgiving as an airline. I would wait. I would probably wait long after that, honestly - there was too much building to this meeting for me to leave. Wait - I could text Mikasa. She and Eren were at the same party, after all, and Mikasa had known I was the flower guys for ages. I’d just ask her what was going on. So I composed a text, sent it, and then watched the rain fall. This was slightly more entertaining than watching the grass grow. At 12:07, I got up, righted the trashcan next to my bench, and started rooting around for trash. This lasted a little over five minutes, which I discovered when I sat back down and checked my phone. There were no texts, but the window for “on time by international flight standards” was nearly closed. Still, I wasn’t going to leave.

I wasn’t going to leave, but my anxiety had become tinged with annoyance. If I was anyone else, I might have decided to leave by now. She could already have missed her chance to find out who was leaving the bouquets and didn’t seem to feel any sense of urgency as a result. Maybe she was nervous too. Maybe she honestly just… didn’t care, and this - I - was just a vaguely amusing disturbance in her already full life. It was 12:17. The plane was late.

Just about then, Mikasa indulged me enough to answer my message: _Party ended late, wouldn't leave early. Coming now-ish._

Oh. Good to know. Depending on where on campus they were, that would put them in the garden anywhere from five to fifteen minutes from now - in other words, about 20-30 minutes late. I had that long to compose myself. I took a deep breath, and…

Nope. It wasn’t going to happen. My pulse was way too high, I was picking at my own nails, and my mind was racing. I picked up the roses, shook some water from their petals, and ran my fingers - gently, gently - over the petals. I was proud of them, even if they’d turned ice blue instead of the navy Eren preferred. My hands were unsteady on the flowers. I took another deep breath, leaned back, and immediately regretted it as rivulets of rain slid through a chink in my hood and down my collarbone. I cursed, purely internally, and listened to a pair of footsteps descending the stairs adjacent to the garden wall, the ones I had descended to get here. It was far too soon to be Eren and Mikasa. Sure enough I caught a glimpse of a couple hand in hand as they reached the bottom of the stairs and moved away from the garden. Had they turned, they might have seen me, but more likely they’d have seen nothing but a dark smear on a dark background.

I took a deep breath. The worst thing she can say is no - but from where I was sitting, that prospect was plenty bad. Worst case scenario, I’d creeped her out and I’d get kicked out of the draw group and have to find a whole new set of roommates. Best case, she’s be all… kind and understanding, and I’d just have to share a room with her and my suppressed affection for a year. On second thought, maybe I’d mixed up my labels. Ultimately, though, this had to be done. It was undeniably the right thing to do. If I didn’t say anything, and just let the whole thing fade into the background, no one would blame me, but I would spend the whole year thinking I was tricking her somehow, that I was a fraud, that it was freakish of me to share a room with her without so much as a heads-up. Now _that_ was a worse case scenario. Recognizing the inevitability of the discussion helped, a little; if I wasn’t calm I was at least serene.

There was just enough time to process that thought when I heard footsteps in the gravel. Someone was coming from the south side of campus at 12:26. I took a deep breath, held it, and watched a short figure with dark, straight hair and a white suit jacket walk up to the streetlight, hands in her pockets. She paused under the hazy glow of the lamp. I was halfway to the streetlamp before I registered standing, and then she looked at me and it took me the rest of an age to reach her. I realized Mikasa was no where in sight. I became acutely aware of the roses in my hand, hanging loose and awkward at my thigh, but I couldn’t think of a better place to put them.

“It’s you. I thought it might be,” she said. There is no joy in her voice, no triumph, not even a hint of satisfaction in her reasoning.

“Yeah. It’s me,” I said.

“Yeah.”

Unwilling to simply turn and walk away (though I would very much like to, God, this was a stupid idea, why did I think this was a good idea), I held out the roses and said, “These are for you. And I wanted to tell you that I have feelings for you in a not-friend way, and not a hatred way, either, and I was wondering if you would maybe go out with me but also if you don’t want to I totally understand and maybe you don’t want to live with me anymore either and I… understand that too and it’s totally fine either way but I thought you should know before. Um. I didn’t want to not tell you that and then move in with you because that would be. Creepy.”

And she just stood there in that white jacket with her hands in her pockets and looked at me and looked and stood and finally she took the roses and then she said, “I don’t.”

I looked at the sky above her head. It was the same hazy gray it’d been since midnight. It wasn't hard, looking over her, I’m tall enough to look straight out. “Don’t what?”

“Have... um... like you romantically. I’m sorry, it’s just... I don’t. I still want to live together, though, if you do. I just don’t feel... the same way.”

“Yeah. Okay. I thought that might be it, I just, uh... well, it was worth a shot.”

A pause. I’ve never wanted to say so much and known so absolutely that there was nothing to say. I cried, I think, or at least there were tears, even if I couldn’t take a breath to really cry. On some level I wasn’t even sure I still had lungs. She was merciful enough not to comment on the tears, except to say “Do you want a hug?” If I didn’t know better, I’d say that she sounded helpless.

She was being kind, I knew. That was as sensitive as Eren’s capable of being, indeed far more sensitive than I would have ever expected from her, but that didn’t change the fact that the words made me want to laugh and sob at the same time. All I wanted was her touch, and yet, and yet, I was sure it would burn. Besides, in the moment, I didn’t think I could move reliably. She was waiting for an answer. Finally, I choked out, “If you want.”

She shuffled a little half-step closer to me and wrapped her arms around my waist. I wish I could say I hugged her back, but I didn’t. I didn’t do anything at all, in fact. “Are you okay?” she said, still holding on.

It was a stupid question. She had to know that. “I’ll be fine,” I said reflexively. There was another pause. “But I, um. I think it might be better if you left for now, okay?” I hadn’t taken a proper breath since my little speech, and somehow I felt like everything hurt, even though I knew there was no reason for that.

She held on for a few more moments, then gave a quick squeeze. I stared at the sky until I could no longer hear her steps in the gravel, then tilted my head back and stared at the clouds until it occurred to me that I could walk. A while after that, I left the garden. On my way back up the stairs, I checked my watch. 1:05. I hadn’t even felt the time pass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVTXPUF4Oz4


End file.
